Re: [gentoo-dev] Are "Copyright 1999-20xx Gentoo Foundation" headers bogus?

[Rich Freeman]

On Mon, Oct 24, 2016 at 7:32 PM, Gordon Pettey <petteyg359@×××××.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 24, 2016 at 5:40 PM, Ciaran McCreesh
> <ciaran.mccreesh@××××××××××.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, 24 Oct 2016 15:34:14 -0700
>> Matt Turner <mattst88@g.o> wrote:
>> > In order to contribute to GNU projects, one must sign a copyright
>> > assignment statement.
>> >
>> > Gentoo doesn't have anything similar as far as I'm aware, which makes
>> > me question the legitimacy of "Gentoo Foundation" copyrights.
>
>
> That style makes no sense to begin with. Something is copyrighted as of the
> date it is created (whether originally or as an updated edited work), from
> that date until X years in the future depending on what country you're in.
> At worst, that range implies "This file was created in 1999 but in 20xx
> we're making it public domain". Assuming Gentoo still exists in 200 years
> and a certain mouse doesn't extend copyright durations again, a header that
> says "1999-2216" would be quite invalid. Just use the single year as of the
> date of editing. See http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl100.html.

The end date (which is the one that matters the most) is only updated
when the file is changed.  Legally somebody could use an earlier
version of the file when its copyright expired, but they could only
use the latest version when its later copyright expires.

I do tend to agree that we should probably make the start date in each
file depend on when that file was created, but I'm not sure that
legally the start date really matters as much.

You'll see plenty of ebuilds in the tree with pre-2016 copyright end
dates.  Repoman will issue a warning if they're modified to warn devs
to update the date, which is completely appropriate legally (setting
aside the issue of who owns the copyright).

-- 
Rich