Re: d/copyright years when upstream does not use years?

Peter Pentchev <[email protected]> writes:
> On Fri, Aug 21, 2026 at 02:08:57PM +0200, Agathe Porte wrote:
>> Hello,
>> 
>> (please keep me Cc'ed, not subscribed to the list)
>> 
>> TL;DR: copyright years are a mess, do we really want to force copyright
>> years using a lintian tag and force debian maintainers to update their
>> d/copyright for d/* each year? I propose we rework these lintian tags, I
>> can do the work but wanted to discuss it on -devel first.
>
> First off, yay, somebody else who likes copyright notices without years :)
>
> So IMHO there are both good and bad things in copyright notices that
> do not include years:
> - good thing: you don't need to update it each year, and it does not
>   get very, very long as you skip a year every now and then :)
> - bad thing: it seems that, at least in the United States, such
>   a copyright notice may not be recognized in court

Copyright attaches even if you do not have a copyright notice.  A year
makes it more clear when it applies, so enforcement gets easier if you
can point to it.

Cheers,
Walter Landry