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Re: [PATCH] memset: also update copyright years


On 04/09/2012 01:03 PM, Carlos O'Donell wrote:
> The question is: Are you allowed to collapse the years if those years
> listed in the source file are *not* contiguous? I know the answer is
> yes, but extracting that realization from the text is difficult
> because no such example is given.

It makes sense to add that to the example; please see below.

> The same goes for the README text
> which is equally broad.

That's a glibc matter, not a GNU coding standards matter, so it's
a separable issue.  I just now looked at the glibc README and
don't see the confusion there, but perhaps the proposed change below
would suffice to clarify the README as well.

> Add text to explain when it's *not* OK to do non-consecutive year
> merging

The current text says "if and only if", which means that collapsing
is not OK when conditions (1) and (2) are not met.  But again, perhaps
changing the example, and clarifying what "copyrightable year" means,
should suffice.

Here's the proposed change to maintain.texi.

--- maintain.texi.~1.217.~	2012-04-09 10:53:21.000000000 -0700
+++ maintain.texi	2012-04-09 15:29:45.970355411 -0700
@@ -656,10 +656,11 @@ translations may use C-in-a-circle in lo
 known to work.  Alternatively, the @samp{(C)} or C-in-a-circle can be
 omitted entirely; the word @samp{Copyright} suffices.
 
-To update the list of year numbers, add each year in which you have
-made nontrivial changes to the package.  (Here we assume you're using
+To update the list of year numbers, add each @dfn{copyrightable year},
+i.e., each year in which you have
+published nontrivial changes to the package.  Typically you're using
 a publicly accessible revision control server, so that every revision
-installed is also immediately and automatically published.)  When you
+installed is also immediately and automatically published.  When you
 add the new year, it is not required to keep track of which files have
 seen significant changes in the new year and which have not.  It is
 recommended and simpler to add the new year to all files in the
@@ -671,9 +672,10 @@ domain, if the movie companies don't con
 extend copyright.  If you copy a file into the package from some other
 program, keep the copyright years that come with the file.
 
-You can use a range (@samp{2008-2010}) instead of listing individual
-years (@samp{2008, 2009, 2010}) if and only if: 1)@tie{}every year in
-the range, inclusive, really is a ``copyrightable'' year that would be
+Ranges can appear in year lists (@samp{2008, 2010-2012}) instead of
+listing individual years (@samp{2008, 2010, 2011, 2012}) if and only
+if: 1)@tie{}every year in
+the range, inclusive, really is a copyrightable year that would be
 listed individually; @emph{and} 2)@tie{}you make an explicit statement
 in a @file{README} file about this usage.
 


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