Re: Question about todos.el copyright and author headers

[Stephen Berman]

On Sun, 16 Jun 2013 20:45:28 -0400 Stefan Monnier <address@hidden> wrote:

>> In 2008 the sole author was Landstrom, and the file was named
>> javascript.el.  Likewise, the sole author of the original todo-mode.el
>> was Seidel.  One difference between the situation with js.el and that
>> with todos.el is that AFAIK javascript.el was never part of Emacs under
>> that name.  However, todos.el cannot be installed as todo-mode.el
>> because the latter is not being removed at this time but moved to
>> lisp/obsolete/,
>
> I thought the plan was to install your code as todo-mode.el (not
> todos-mode.el).

There were three plans I asked about: (1) "simply replace the old
version", (2) "install the new version alongside the old version", and
(3), which you said you favored:

   >> - A third alternative is to install the new version as posted with the
   >>   new name and prefix in place of the old version and move that to
   >>   lisp/obsolete/, so people could still use it but would have more
   >>   incentive to use the new version.
   >
   > That sounds like the better solution.  Even better if the old and the
   > new code can be both in use at the same time (e.g. if you have
   > converted some of your todo files but not all).

It's fine with me to keep the name todo-mode.el for the new version and
use the "todo-" prefix, but then doesn't the obsoleted version have to
be renamed and re-prefixed?  If so, how about todo-mode-obs.el and
"todo-obs-"?  Or is the idea not to be able to have both versions loaded
at the same time, but to be able to switch between them?  (But if they
have the same name, the one in lisp/obsolete/ won't be found by `M-x
(load|find|locate)-library'.)

>> Is it nevertheless acceptable to use the above copyright header in
>> todos.el?
>
> The only important part, legally is the "copyright" part, which should
> simply include the old years since (IIUC) the code actually derives from
> it (tho not much of it remains, it wasn't all written from scratch).

Ok.

> The "author" part is just important for the sake of acknowledging the
> contribution of people, so even if someone's code has been 100%
> superseded it's still perfectly fine to include his name there.
> But the most important message here is: it doesn't matter, and
> also, there's no harm in keeping more people in the list than
> really necessary.  So just keep Seidel in the list and forget about it.

Ok.

>> (Regarding the parenthetical additions to the author lines,
>> these are intended to avoid confusion and prevent mistaken
>> attribution, similar to what's done in apropos.el.)
>
> Nobody cares.  We have a ChangeLog for those who want to know who
> contributed what.

Ok.

Steve Berman