"Every January 1st, an army of open source developers rushes out to
update their copyright attributions in licenses and documentation. Why?
Because we’ve always done it that way.
I’ve stopped participating after I learned that copyright statements
need only the year of the first publication and no lawyer that I asked
contradicted.
Now, I’m not a lawyer, so don’t take this as legal advice from me. All
I’m saying is that if it’s good enough for Google’s, Microsoft’s, and
Netflix’s lawyers, it’s good enough for me:
- [Google’s Go](https://github.com/golang/go/blob/master/LICENSE)
- [Microsoft’s VS
Code](https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/blob/main/LICENSE.txt)
- [Netflix’s
Hystrix](https://github.com/Netflix/Hystrix/blob/master/README.md#license)
In fact, you can drop years altogether:
- Linux Foundation’s
[guidance](https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/copyright-notices-in-open-source-software-projects/).
- Facebook [removed
years](https://github.com/facebook/react/commit/b87aabdfe1b7461e7331abb3601d9e6bb27544bc)
from React.
- Amazon [switched
positions](https://mastodon.social/@[email protected]/109621623369696598)
in [2020](https://twitter.com/ajorg/status/1228369968963604480), too.
Enjoy your New Year doing something more fun!"
-- Hynek Schlawack, https://hynek.me/til/copyright-years/
