Sylvain Beucler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> tapota : > I admit I though of consistency when adding the notice, but saw that > considering changing all the notices would not be welcome in a branch > for Savannah-specific changes, and I procrastined, shame on me. > > The method from maintain.texi has the advantage of being validated by > a lawyer specialized in international copyright laws, so I didn't > really try to figure out what would look more appealing or ugly, what > would give more or less information - I just use this documented > standard, just as it is.
Sure, but did the lawyer speciliazed in international copyright laws invalidated the other format (which contained more or less exactly the same info - the only clear difference is between putting every years or not, which seems not so important in fine). > > Incidentally, regarding: >> >Using spaces/tabs to align the name is not good in the long run, when >> >you get a *big* list of years such as glibc's. >> >> Why not? > > I was arguing against an argument for sexier indenting: > # Copyright (C) 2003, 2004, 2005 Mathieu Roy > # Copyright (C) 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc. > # Copyright (C) 2004, 2005 Sylvain Beucler > > which would lead, by consistency, to: > # Copyright (C) 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, > 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc. > # Copyright (C) 2004, 2005 > Sylvain Beucler > That's would definitely be messy. > We could consider shrining the year list; however, I consider > copyright notice just like a programming language: if you make even > the slightest mistake, you don't match its grammar and it won't > compile. That's also why I stick to maintain.texi's description; > besides, that part of maintain.texi is written in such a way that I > think it is describing general copyright notices information rather > than a GNU-specific notation. Well, reading the document, one could easily make a list of cosmetics choices that have been made for consistency but that are not, fundamentally, better than others. Cosmetics does not necessarily invalidate a document from a legal point of view, as long as it is unequivocal, as matter of facts. Since, anyway, we are in an international context (meaning: a messy mixture of national contexts), many others questions would arise if we were about to question such aspects. Frankly, for a program like Savane, was matters is that copyright info is here, with the date, name, relevant address. And if we can make it the easier way to read, go for it, because if someday we were to sue someone regarding to savane, I doubt this issue would make any difference. -- Mathieu Roy +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ | General Homepage: http://yeupou.coleumes.org/ | | Computing Homepage: http://alberich.coleumes.org/ | | Not a native english speaker: | | http://stock.coleumes.org/doc.php?i=/misc-files/flawed-english | +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ _______________________________________________ Savane-dev mailing list [email protected] https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/savane-dev
