Re: Proper Copyright Year in PHP files now an automated QA tasks

Jason wrote:
> I think it is even harmful to update the year to the current year when things
> are changed. I suspect we need to put date ranges in:
> 
> 2004 becomes 2004-2009
> or perhaps: 2004,2009
> 
> I'm not expert, so it would be an idea if someone could find out for sure.
> 

Copyright law and applicability are different for many countries, but 
the practical things applicable for us are:

1. we chose to include a copyright notice in every non-trivial file 
instead of one big copyright notice for the whole work.

2. a copyright statement signals a confirmation of the rights the 
authors have on the content of the file, this means that only the 
years these rights start to have an effect should be listed. In short: 
do not use ranges. (This also means, leaving this notice out does NOT 
mean the authors have NO rights, they are just harder to claim) 
Copyright is intrinsic (and in some countries can not be transferred) 
and does NOT rely on these file statements to be there. The statements 
magnify and clarify existing rights, they do not create these rights.

3. The copyright notice should be:
  a.) Copyright (C) 1993, 2005, 2009 The Digital Development 
Foundation
  b.) Copyright (C) 1993, 2005, 2009 A.U. Thor
  c.) a combination of the above

If the file had significant, non trivial contributions in 1993, 2005 
and 2009.

a.) is applicable if all authors have signed the Joint Copyright 
Agreement (JCA), which should be all authors for everything in the 
core repository. Thus, core only needs to use the form under a.)

b.) is applicable if you author a file but you have not signed the JCA 
(for example if you create a new file in a module you develop) The 
A.U. Thor may be your employer (or both of you).

c.) Is applicable if you modify a file, but you haven't signed the JCA.

In short: Sign the JCA for everything and things get a lot simpler.

4. Only the years of non trivial changes are listed in copyright 
notices. Usually the year of creation and other years, separated by 
comma's. Year ranges *can* be correct, but they are misleading, so try 
to stick with explicit mentioning.

5. The License Notice is also included in many files. This is to give 
permission to copy/modify the file, under certain conditions. (GPL in 
our case for core)

Relevant links:
- RFC-44 lists the php headers
http://www.xaraya.com/documentation/rfcs/rfc0044.html#rfc.section.3
(although the text is right, the example is wrong there, duh!)
- we use the GPL, their text on the above: 
http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/maintain.html#Copyright-Notices

marcel