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73 lines
3.3 KiB
Text
73 lines
3.3 KiB
Text
HOW TO MAINTAIN COPYRIGHT YEARS FOR GNU EMACS
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Maintaining copyright years is now very simple: every time a new year
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rolls around, add that year to every FSF (and AIST) copyright notice.
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Do this by running the 'admin/update-copyright' script on a fresh repo
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checkout, redirecting its output to a file, so that you could later
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examine the files that don't have copyright notices. Inspect the
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results for plausibility, then commit them.
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A few known problems with the build-aux/update-copyright script:
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. it doesn't update config.bat, msdos/depfiles.bat,
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nt/configure.bat, etc/tutorials/TUTORIAL.cn,
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etc/tutorials/TUTORIAL.el_GR, and etc/tutorials/TUTORIAL.he
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because the "Copyright" statement begins in these files
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after a prefix that is more than 5 characters long
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. it doesn't update etc/tutorials/TUTORIAL.nl and
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etc/tutorials/TUTORIAL.ro for some reason
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. it doesn't update the second Copyright notice, the one that gets
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output into PDF and PS, in etc/refcards/ru-refcard.tex
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. it doesn't update etc/refcards/gnus-refcard.tex and
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doc/misc/org.org because their Copyright statements have a
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non-standard format
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. several README and XPM files under etc/images/, and also
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etc/refcards/README, msdos/README, and nt/icons/README aren't
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updated either
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- the copyright notice for headers generated by exec/configure.ac is
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not updated as the file already bears a notice above it
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These files need to be updated by hand.
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Next, run "M-x set-copyright" from admin.el, which updates several
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copyright notices in the Emacs sources.
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You should also run the etags test suite in test/manual/etags/. It
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will most probably fail because the contents of the test files changes
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due to copyright years update, so you need to move each ETAGS and
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CTAGS file produced by the test runs into the corresponding
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ETAGS.good* and CTAGS.good files, and then commit the new test files.
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There's no need to worry about whether an individual file has changed
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in a given year - it's sufficient that Emacs as a whole has changed.
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Therefore the years are updated en-masse near the start of each year,
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so basically there is no need for most people to do any updating of them.
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The current (in 2011) version of "Information for Maintainers of GNU
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Software" (see that document for more details) says that it is OK to use
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ranges in copyright years, so in early 2011 the years were changed to use
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ranges, which occupy less space and do not grow in length every year.
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For more detailed information on maintaining copyright, see the file
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"copyright" in this directory.
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The previous policy was more complex, but is now only of historical
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interest (see versions of this file from before 2009).
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The refcards in etc/refcards can print only the latest copyright year,
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but should keep the full list in a comment in the source.
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"Our lawyer says it is ok if we add, to each file that has been in Emacs
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since Emacs 21 came out in 2001, all the subsequent years[1]. We don't
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need to check whether *that file* was changed in those years.
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It's sufficient that *Emacs* was changed in those years (and it was!).
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For those files that have been added since then, we should add
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the year it was added to Emacs, and all subsequent years."
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--RMS, 2005-07-13
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[1] Note that this includes 2001 - see
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<https://lists.gnu.org/r/emacs-pretest-bug/2006-12/msg00119.html>
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