Subject: Re: bug#11356: automake 1.12 and (C) 2011

From: Jack Kelly <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2012 08:36:45 +1000

On Fri, Apr 27, 2012 at 10:05 PM, Eric Blake <[email-masked]> wrote:
> On 04/27/2012 03:18 AM, Stefano Lattarini wrote:
>> On 04/27/2012 05:30 AM, Peter Johansson wrote:
>> +++ b/aclocal.in
>> @@ -840,9 +840,8 @@ $output";
>>    # name in the header.
>>    $output = "# generated automatically by aclocal $VERSION -*- Autoconf -*-
>>
>> -# Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004,
>> -# 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 Free Software Foundation,
>> -# Inc.
>> +# Copyright (C) 1996-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
>
> This makes sense,

This took me by surprise, because it wasn't the case previously. It is
now acceptable usage according to GNU standards, see
http://savannah.gnu.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=6576 and
http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/Copyright-Notices.html

""""
You can use a range (‘2008-2010’) instead of listing individual years
(‘2008, 2009, 2010’) if and only if: 1) every year in the range,
inclusive, really is a “copyrightable” year that would be listed
individually; and 2) you make an explicit statement in a ‘README’ file
about this usage.
"""

I suggest you update README to follow the guidelines. The guidelines
don't say what exactly should be in the notice, but I presume it's a
statement to the effect that 1) above holds.

-- Jack