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

[Judd Storrs]

On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 11:17 AM, John W. Eaton <address@hidden> wrote:
> I would bet that the advice in the FSF maintainers guide on copyright
> notices has the approval of their legal counsel, so I don't have a
> problem following their advice.

I understand that. It's just that I don't see that the FSF maintainers
guide indicates that you should update third-party copyright notices
for entities that are no longer involved with octave development. I
think you may have interpolated that.

I see that the guide indicates how to update your own copyright
notices and (separately) how to incorporate third-party copyright
notices. If someone is not involved with the development and release
octave, I don't think we should be stamping dates for their
contributions. It gives the false impression that they were involved
at a time when they were not. I think this sentence is important:

"To update the list of year numbers, add each year in which you have
made nontrivial changes to the package."

If they are no longer involved with octave development, they cannot
have made a nontrivial change to octave, right?


--judd