Subject: [bug#76963] Copyright ranges and Copyright holders in README [WAS Re: [bug#76963] [PATCH] home: Add home-snuik-service.]

From: Janneke Nieuwenhuizen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2025 21:31:10 +0100

Janneke Nieuwenhuizen writes:

Hi,

> Janneke Nieuwenhuizen writes:
>
>> Janneke Nieuwenhuizen writes:
>>
>> [..]
>>>>> diff --git a/doc/guix.texi b/doc/guix.texi
>>>>> index d109877a32..f35e156376 100644
>>>>> --- a/doc/guix.texi
>>>>> +++ b/doc/guix.texi
>>>>> @@ -36,7 +36,7 @@
>>>>>  Copyright @copyright{} 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 Efraim Flashner@*
>>>>>  Copyright @copyright{} 2016 John Darrington@*
>>>>>  Copyright @copyright{} 2016, 2017 Nikita Gillmann@*
>>>>> -Copyright @copyright{} 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 Janneke Nieuwenhuizen@*
>>>>> +Copyright @copyright{} 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 Janneke Nieuwenhuizen@*
>>>>
>>>> Maybe use 2016-2025 :-).
>>>
>>> Hmm.  I thought you needed to have a special exception in the README to
>>> be able for that to hold up in court.  I've been postponing to look into
>>> this mess (I used to be too heavily into copyright in my LilyPond years).
>>> However, it seems today is the day :)
>>>
>>> From <https://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.
>>>
>>> Sadly, the manual does not seem to give a template to use for this, and
>>> I have learnt to stay away from authoring legal texts.  I just asked
>>> gnu-prog-discuss about this.
>>>
>>> I cannot find such a statement in the Guix README?  Ludo'?
>>
>> Emacs uses
>>
>> In copyright notices where the copyright holder is the Free Software
>> Foundation, then where a range of years appears, this is an inclusive
>> range that applies to every year in the range.  For example: 2005-2008
>> represents the years 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008.
>>
>> so I propose the attached patch.
>>
>> WDYT?
>
> Sorry, spoke too soon.  The story continues (this is why I shied away
> from (looking into) using ranges).
>
> On gru-prog-discuss, Eli Zaretskii writes (in response to my suggestion)
>
> I think the idea is that you can only vouch for this interpretation
> when you are the copyright holder.  So I think you'd need to mention
> someone else there instead of the FSF, not just leave it empty.
> Because for an arbitrary copyright holder, who's to say what they mean
> by a range of years?
>
> But this is just my understanding; IANAL.
>
> ...TBC

I haven't heard back from the fsf (laywers) yet, so I'm tentatively
proposing the attached patch.  It's really beyond me how 58(!) people
managed to use ranges in copyright years where per GNU documentation (am
I the only one actually reading that?) that is quite posssibly not
legally valid.  I mean, I don't really care about legalese all that
much, let's drop all silly headers with all the rebase conflicts, the
metadata is in git right?...but if we are to try to cater for this legal
foo-ness, we should probably be [super] strict, no?

Next to the attached patch, there should probably be something about
"add your name to the README" in the Contributing section of the manual.

Greetings,
Janneke

>From 045d76823e98933a6a99aaff23ea7ee450ac8fea Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
From: Janneke Nieuwenhuizen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2025 19:48:26 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] doc: Add note on copyright ranges to README.

* README (Note On Copyright Years): New section.

Change-Id: I1b2f8ed544dc83c38479e944ae6e08ddbcafdf35
---
 README | 67 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 67 insertions(+)

diff --git a/README b/README
index b9f36f8344f..1d9cea1ea54 100644
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -108,3 +108,70 @@ but exposes all the API as Scheme.
   - The [[https://www.gnu.org/s/gsrc/][GNU Source Release Collection]] (GSRC) is a user-land software
     distribution; unlike Guix, it relies on core tools available on the
     host system
+
+* Note On Copyright Years
+
+  In copyright notices where a the copyright holder is one of
+
+    Adam Faiz
+    André A. Gomes
+    Andrew Tropin
+    Andy Wingo
+    Artyom V. Poptsov
+    Arun Isaac
+    Brice Waegeneire
+    Bruno Victal
+    Danial Behzadi
+    David Elsing
+    Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli
+    Efraim Flashner
+    Eraim Flashner
+    Eric Bavier
+    Evgeny Pisemsky
+    Feross Aboukhadijeh
+    Giacomo Leidi
+    Greg Hogan
+    Guillaume Le Vaillant
+    Hartmut Goebel
+    Herman Rimm
+    Igor Pavlov.
+    Iliya Tikhonenko
+    James Smith
+    Janneke Nieuwenhuizen
+    jgart
+    John Kehayias
+    Jonathan Brielmaier
+    J. Schilling.
+    Julien Lepiller
+    Lennart Regebro
+    Leo Famulari
+    Liam Hupfer
+    Liliana Marie Prikler
+    Ludovic Courtès
+    Mădălin Ionel Patrașcu
+    Marius Bakke
+    Mark H Weaver
+    Martin Becze
+    Maxim Cournoyer
+    Maxime Devos
+    Mike Bostock
+    Navid Afkhami
+    Nicolas Goaziou
+    Paul A. Patience
+    Philip McGrath
+    Remco van 't Veer
+    Ricardo Wurmus
+    Robert Lougher
+    Rocky Bernstein
+    Sharlatan Hellseher
+    Simon Josefsson
+    Suhail Singh
+    Tibor Koleszar
+    Université Bordeaux
+    Vinicius Monego
+    Zheng Junjie
+    Zhu Zihao
+
+  then where a range of years appears, this is an inclusive range that applies
+  to every year in the range.  For example: 2012-2015 represents the years 2012,
+  2013, 2014, and 2015.

base-commit: 678b3dddfe442e643fe5cff7730d4f9690c3e2c2
-- 
2.47.1

-- 
Janneke Nieuwenhuizen <[email-masked]>  | GNU LilyPond https://LilyPond.org
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