Re: check-news target fails if NEWS file starts with a copyright header

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Jim, Peter,

* Jim Meyering wrote on Fri, Jun 04, 2010 at 02:40:20PM CEST:
> 
> You may want to put the copyright at the end of NEWS.
> Human readers prefer it that way, too ;-)
> 
> Here's what I use:
> 
> ========================================================================
> Copyright (C) 2001-2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
> 
> Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
> under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or
> any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
> Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover
> Texts.  A copy of the license is included in the ``GNU Free
> Documentation License'' file as part of this distribution.

A while ago, Karl encouraged GNU maintainers to just license files like
NEWS, ChangeLog, TODO, and similar (but maybe not THANKS) under an
all-permissive license.  I think that is a good example to follow
(autoconf/NEWS):

  Copyright (C) 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002,
  2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 Free Software Foundation,
  Inc.

  Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
  are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
  notice and this notice are preserved.  This file is offered as-is,
  without warranty of any kind.

Cheers,
Ralf