On a further note regarding the years of copyright. "Do not abbreviate the year list using a range; for instance, do not write `1996--1998'; instead, write `1996, 1997, 1998'. Do write each relevant year as a four-digit number. In the normal course of maintenance, you may come across copyright notices which omit the century, as in `1996, 97, 98'—change these to include the century. However, there is no need to systematically change the notice in every old file." From: <http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/maintain.html#Copyright-Notices>
It reads explicitly that we need not retroactively change the copyright notices, however perhaps we should start writing the year in a method that conforms. Later Days, Lares Moreau My Appoligies for duplication, New app. On Sun, 2005-02-13 at 23:03 -0800, Anthony Gorecki wrote: > Hello, > > After recently submitting an updated ebuild for inclusion, I've become > concerned with the statement "Copyright 1999-2004 Gentoo Foundation" that > appears within packages, for a number of reasons: > > First, by using a date range in the copyright declaration, it is given that > updated changes to the copyrighted work have been made and released to the > public in each of the consecutive covered years that are listed. In the case > of updated ebuilds, the first ebuild for a given package may not have been > released in 1999, making such a date range incorrect. For ebuilds that add > usability for presently unavailable software, only the year of release would > be necessary. > > A good piece of information on the subject is listed on the GNU website, > <http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/maintain.html#Copyright-Notices>, and to > quote a small section: > > "The list of year numbers should include each year in which you finished > preparing a version which was actually released, and which was an ancestor of > the current version. > > Please reread the paragraph above, slowly and carefully. It is important to > understand that rule precisely, much as you would understand a complicated C > statement in order to hand-simulate it." > > Whether a new ebuild that's released for an updated software package > constitutes and update to an older ebuild or an independent addition is open > to speculation (as the ebuilds are technically independent entities), though > I'm more inclined to side with the former. In which case, most of the ebuilds > for any given package were not in existence at the beginning of 1999, and > should not contain that date as a copyrightable year. > > Second, in reference to displaying "Gentoo Foundation" as the copyright > holder, merely submitting an ebuild with that statement is not legally > sufficient to establish copyright ownership or disclamation of copyright. > > While the developers who have signed copyright assignment agreements in > writing satisfy the requirements needed to define Gentoo as the owner of a > piece of software, independent users such as myself do not not meet those > conditions. An obvious example of that inadequacy would be having a user > develop a malicious piece of code, and stamping a "Copyright (C) 2005 > International Business Machines Corporation" notice at the beginning of the > program; it would be unreasonable to expect that a court of law would > consider that adequate copyright assignment, as anyone would be able to > wildly assign copyrights without any accountability. > > In total, there are 28,523 references to "Gentoo Foundation" in the Portage > tree (not including the distfiles), the majority of which are copyright > notices. Even assuming that Portage itself is free of user-submitted (and > unassigned) significant changes, the same cannot be said of the tree. > > Adding a GLEP for this issue may be helpful, however aside from that, what > actions should be taken to correct this problem? > >
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