Re: Years in copyright notices

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 15:46:45 -0500 (CDT)
> From: Luc Teirlinck <address@hidden>
> 
> I see that some people update the copyright years when they make
> changes, but apparently most people do not.

The rule is that the copyright years should include any year during
which changes were done to a file that are still present when the
package is released.

That means, theoretically, that if a file mumble.el was modified in
the year 2003, but that change was taken out before the file was
released with the next Emacs version, the year 2003 does not need to
appear.  But in practice, the only good way is to make sure, when you
modify a file, that the current year is in the list.

> Are copyright years automatically updated from CVS data when a
> release is made?

No, maintainers are supposed to do that when they install changes.