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

* Jonas Smedegaard <[email protected]> [260828 11:04]:
> Quoting Marvin Renich (2026-08-28 16:23:15)
> > To be clear, supplying an _appropriate_ year, not just updating the year
> > in every file for every upload to the archive.  That would just make a
> > lot more work for someone later on trying to enforce a copyright or
> > trying to show a copyright had expired, in addition to just being busy
> > work for the Debian maintainer.
> > 
> > TBH, (I am not a lawyer) if Debian as a redistributor of someone else's
> > software adds dates to copyright notices, but either does not send them
> > back upstream or upstream refuses to accept them, I am dubious that the
> > dates would have _any bearing at all_ in a legal battle.  The only thing
> > adding a date would protect would be changes made by Debian, not the
> > original upstream code (and only if the dates were added in a separate
> > copyright notice for and by the persons making the changes).
> > 
> > To put it another way, I do not believe that Debian, as a redistributor,
> > can in any way make changes to upstream's copyright or license.  Adding
> > a date to upstream's copyright notice is one such change that would (in
> > my layman's opinion) be ineffectual in a legal battle.
> 
> Yes, good free software citizenship requires supplying the years that
> are known to us, but not invent years. Same was as we should supply the
> copyright holders and licensing requirements.

It is unclear to me whether you are simply agreeing with my first point,
in which case trimming my second point from your response would have
made that clear, or if you didn't understand that my second point was a
counter-point to my first.

If upstream is _known_ to be averse to putting years on their copyright
notices (which is the subject of this sub-thread), adding the year to
_their_ copyright notice in the Debian package is not "being a good free
software citizen", it is simply a waste of time and resources, and is
counterproductive.

Debian should try to convince upstream to include years, and if they
agree that they will at least accept patches, then and only then should
Debian maintainers spend their valuable time on this.

...Marvin