Re: [Fwd: Re: Copyright text, and javadoc license]

[Jeffrey Thompson]

Phil Steitz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote on 03/05/2005 06:59:14 PM:
> I don't pretend to understand any of this; but this sounds like it could
> save us volunteers a little time, so let me ask the following question:
>
> Suppose we have a source file that was created @apache as part of an
> ongoing project.  When first added to the source repo, it included our
> standard copyright notice in its header file. That notice referenced the
> year that it was added, say 2004.  Now 2005 rolls around and I make and
> commit a change to the file.  Do I need to change
>
>  * Copyright 2004 The Apache Software Foundation.
>
> to
>
>  * Copyright 2004-2005 The Apache Software Foundation.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Phil
>

Do you need to?  Not really.  The purpose of the year in the copyright notice is to indicate when the copyright term started so that people can calculate when the work moves into the public domain.  In your hypo, the file was created in 2004, so that's when the copyright on the file begins.  Using a span of dates (eg., 2004-2005) is mostly used for collective works where individual pieces might be 2004 and others might be 2005.  For simplicity, I'd suggest keeping the initial date unless you've performed some sort of major revision.

Jeff


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