Re: copyright notices (was: Re: Are we (nearly) ready for 3.4 yet?)

[Judd Storrs]

On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 10:31 AM, John W. Eaton <address@hidden> wrote:
> So I think we should just add the current year to all copyright
> notices in a file when the notices are updated.  I'm now thinking that
> once someone claims copyright on a file, there is no reason to drop
> that person later.
>
> Then all notices could be of the form
>
>   Copyright (C) YYYY-2011 NAME
>
> where YYYY is the first year of claimed copyright (or the year that
> the file first appeared in Octave).  I have no problem with including
> all years since the introduction of the file since there has been
> publication (releases, snapshots, or public CVS/hg archives) in each
> year since 1993.

I'm not sure I agree with this. Copyright is intended to be limited.
Isn't the intent of the copyright notice to establish the clock for
expiration of the copyright? Disney can't just keep extending Bambi by
stamping a new date in the credits. That's why they get Congress to
change the laws. Or are you saying only the first date matters? The
dates should accompany the production of the work. A file that has not
been touched should not be bumped.


--judd