Preferred format of Copyright statement

Preferred format of Copyright statement

[Rodney Brown]

Emerson's "A foolish consistency is a hobgoblin of little minds ..."
feels apt, but anyway...

GDB, binutils and GCC all have some FSF copyright notices using a
year range which the "Information For Maintainers...- Copyright Notices"
< http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain_4.html#SEC4 > says not to use.

My perl script will correct this, remove "(C) "s and leave FSF
copyrights in the form Ian Lance Taylor recommended in
< http://sources.redhat.com/ml/binutils/2000-02/msg00076.html >.
viz:

Copyright 1990, 91, 92, 93, 94, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

This form would allow ~ 9 year numbers in the list before needing to
wrap to two lines as compared with ~ 6 for the 4-digit year form implied
by the FSF Information for Maintainers page.
GDB has at least one file with a list of 13 years.

According to section 2.7 of the Copyright-FAQ, it would be a
valid (US) Copyright notice (IMO - which has No legal worth)
< ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/law/Copyright-FAQ/part2 >

Does this form meet the FSF need for squeaky clean legalities?

To avoid future ambiguity, I'd add additional rules.

. On each line, the year list should begin and end with a 4-digit year.
. The copyright-holder should not be split across lines.
. If the copyright-holder is split from the Copyright line, it should
  carry at least one year to emphasize continuation.
  (Indentation? or just use indentation?)
We choose one of the following:
. The first year in the list in a new (popularly defined) century should
  be a 4-digit year.
 or
. The first and last year in a list in a (popularly defined) century
  should be a 4-digit year.

ie 1996-2002

Copyright 1996, 97, 98, 99, 2000, 01, 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 or
Copyright 1996, 97, 98, 1999, 2000, 01, 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

ie 1995-1999, 2002-2004

Copyright 1995, 96, 97, 98, 99, 2002, 03, 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 or
Copyright 1995, 96, 97, 98, 1999, 2002, 03, 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

ie 1990-1999

Copyright 1990, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 1998,
1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

 or maybe

Copyright 1990, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 1998,
          1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

I'll summarize followups and tweak my script accordingly.

Note that the gdb, gcc and binutils COPYING files are all
"GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE, Version 2, June 1991" which uses the
Copyright (C) form which is no longer recommended in the
"Information for Maintainers".

My script currently targets FSF and Andrew Cagney's copyrights.
If a Cygnus => Redhat renaming is required, or particular other
copyright statements should be adjusted, let me know.
--
Rodney Brown
(& yes my mail configuration is broken).

Re: Preferred format of Copyright statement

[Geoff Keating]

> From: Rodney Brown <rdb@cygnus.com>
> Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 23:14:51 +1000 (EST)

> Copyright 1990, 91, 92, 93, 94, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
> 
> This form would allow ~ 9 year numbers in the list before needing to
> wrap to two lines as compared with ~ 6 for the 4-digit year form implied
> by the FSF Information for Maintainers page.
> GDB has at least one file with a list of 13 years.
> 
> According to section 2.7 of the Copyright-FAQ, it would be a
> valid (US) Copyright notice (IMO - which has No legal worth)
> < ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/law/Copyright-FAQ/part2 >
> 
> Does this form meet the FSF need for squeaky clean legalities?

No.  The FSF asks for full 4-digit years. The statement above should
be:

Copyright 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1999 Free Software Foundation,
Inc.

I know this has a tendency to line-wrap, but so what?  No human will
ever care.  So we might as well make it completely correct.
-- 
- Geoffrey Keating <geoffk@cygnus.com>

Re: Preferred format of Copyright statement

[Rodney Brown]

> > From: Rodney Brown 
> > Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 23:14:51 +1000 (EST)

> > Copyright 1990, 91, 92, 93, 94, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
...
> > Does this form meet the FSF need for squeaky clean legalities?

> No.  The FSF asks for full 4-digit years. The statement above should
> be:

> Copyright 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1999 Free Software Foundation,
> Inc.

> I know this has a tendency to line-wrap, but so what?  No human will
> ever care.  So we might as well make it completely correct.

Ok, will produce that form.
  Given that the first attempt over gdb
gives a patch file of ~900k touching 1725 files, would it be more useful
to provide patches for the few percent of cases needing manual fixes and
provide the script to be run when the maintainer finds it convenient?
Or should it only fix those with ranges or 2-digit years and leave (C)
removal where the year list is Ok?

(Trying to conserve maintainer think time, not be a WOFTAM).

Regards,
--
Rodney Brown

Re: Preferred format of Copyright statement

[Andrew Cagney]

> > I know this has a tendency to line-wrap, but so what?  No human will
> > ever care.  So we might as well make it completely correct.
> 
> Ok, will produce that form.
>   Given that the first attempt over gdb
> gives a patch file of ~900k touching 1725 files, would it be more useful
> to provide patches for the few percent of cases needing manual fixes and
> provide the script to be run when the maintainer finds it convenient?
> Or should it only fix those with ranges or 2-digit years and leave (C)
> removal where the year list is Ok?
> 
> (Trying to conserve maintainer think time, not be a WOFTAM).

(Yes I know your e-mail was posted a month ago :-().

Could I suggest a multi-step process like Kevin is doing to clean up
PARAMS.  I'd suggest doing the automated changes and then as a later
pass, do the hand changes.  You won't need maintainer approval for this
change.  Just give a weeks notice on the big jumbo change.

	enjoy,
		Andrew

PS: I my take on how to format copyright is that IanC's guideline is
simply too complicated for us programming types - we're a simple bunch
:-)

Re: Preferred format of Copyright statement

[Philip Blundell]

In message < E14DcEz-00007K-00@urtur >, RDBrown@mira.net writes:
>If a binutils release is due soon and this is worth doing before
>the release I'd better move.  Or would it be better to wait until
>the early Feb and the binutils release code freeze before standardizing
>Copyright statements?

As far as I'm concerned, you might as well do it now.

Thanks

p.

Re: Preferred format of Copyright statement

[RDBrown]

> For the patches supplied I found it easiest to run the script,
> correct the (few) errors it diagnosed and then walk through the changes
> doing some minor reformatting. The ChangeLog entries took almost as
> long. Since the changes are mainly in comments a big bang approach is
> less risky than for PARAMS. ...

If a binutils release is due soon and this is worth doing before
the release I'd better move.  Or would it be better to wait until
the early Feb and the binutils release code freeze before standardizing
Copyright statements?

> I need to submit a patch to automake which has and generates
> an embedded year range.
(Automake development sources have been updated.)

> From: Andrew Cagney 
...
> Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2000 6:08 AM
> Subject: Re: Preferred format of Copyright statement



> > > I know this has a tendency to line-wrap, but so what?  No human will
> > > ever care.  So we might as well make it completely correct.

> > Ok, will produce that form.
> >   Given that the first attempt over gdb
> > gives a patch file of ~900k touching 1725 files, would it be more useful
> > to provide patches for the few percent of cases needing manual fixes and
> > provide the script to be run when the maintainer finds it convenient?
> > Or should it only fix those with ranges or 2-digit years and leave (C)
> > removal where the year list is Ok?
> > 
> > (Trying to conserve maintainer think time, not be a WOFTAM).

> (Yes I know your e-mail was posted a month ago :-().

...
> ... You won't need maintainer approval for this
> change.  Just give a weeks notice on the big jumbo change.

=> move into the late 1990s and start using CVS with a temporary
write permission? Both gdb & binutils in one hit?

Regards,
Rodney Brown

Re: Preferred format of Copyright statement

[Andrew Cagney]

> "Brown, Rodney" wrote:
> 
> For the patches supplied I found it easiest to run the script,
> correct the (few) errors it diagnosed and then walk through the
> changes
> doing some minor reformatting. The ChangeLog entries took almost as
> long. Since the changes are mainly in comments a big bang approach is
> less risky than for PARAMS. Once the distraction of Roy & HG is over I
> should be able to
> supply patches with a few days turn around at most, so whenever it
> is convenient for you guys.

The big bang theory sounds fine.

	Andrew

RE: Preferred format of Copyright statement

[Brown, Rodney]

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Title: RE: Preferred format of Copyright statement





For the patches supplied I found it easiest to run the script,
correct the (few) errors it diagnosed and then walk through the changes
doing some minor reformatting. The ChangeLog entries took almost as
long. Since the changes are mainly in comments a big bang approach is
less risky than for PARAMS. Once the distraction of Roy & HG is over I should be able to
supply patches with a few days turn around at most, so whenever it
is convenient for you guys.


I need to submit a patch to automake which has and generates
an embedded year range.


-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Cagney [ mailto:ac131313@cygnus.com ]
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2000 6:08 AM
To: RDBrown@mira.net; RodneyBrown@mynd.com
Cc: Geoff Keating; gdb@sources.redhat.com
Subject: Re: Preferred format of Copyright statement




> > I know this has a tendency to line-wrap, but so what?  No human will
> > ever care.  So we might as well make it completely correct.
> 
> Ok, will produce that form.
>   Given that the first attempt over gdb
> gives a patch file of ~900k touching 1725 files, would it be more useful
> to provide patches for the few percent of cases needing manual fixes and
> provide the script to be run when the maintainer finds it convenient?
> Or should it only fix those with ranges or 2-digit years and leave (C)
> removal where the year list is Ok?
> 
> (Trying to conserve maintainer think time, not be a WOFTAM).


(Yes I know your e-mail was posted a month ago :-().


Could I suggest a multi-step process like Kevin is doing to clean up
PARAMS.  I'd suggest doing the automated changes and then as a later
pass, do the hand changes.  You won't need maintainer approval for this
change.  Just give a weeks notice on the big jumbo change.


        enjoy,
                Andrew


PS: I my take on how to format copyright is that IanC's guideline is
simply too complicated for us programming types - we're a simple bunch
:-)