Re: style(9) questions about Copyright comment

On 8/1/26 11:28, Steve Kargl wrote:
> In reading style(9), it states the comment with the
> the Copyright should appear as
> 
> /*
>  * Copyright (c) 1984-2025 John Q. Public
>  *
>  * SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-2-Clause
>  */
> 
> which appears contrary with regards to practice.  The
> opening line for a Copyright comment contains a minus
> sign, i.e.,
> 
> /*-
>  * Copyright (c) 1984-2025 John Q. Public
>  *
>  * SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-2-Clause
>  */
> 
> Should style(9) be fixed?
> 

Looks like 13.5's and 14.3's man pages have /*- and 14.4's has /* .
Also, 15.0 has just /* .

Looks like indent(1) handled (and handles) /*- and /** specially:

QUOTE
   Comments
       `Box' comments.	The indent utility assumes that	 any  comment
with  a
       dash  or	star immediately after the start of comment (that is,
`/*-' or
       `/**') is a comment surrounded by a box of stars.  Each line of
such  a
       comment	is left	unchanged, except that its indentation may be
adjusted
       to account for the change in indentation	of the first line of the
 com-
       ment.
END QUOTE

So the history looks to be tied to such.

I doubt an up-front churn for this is wanted. So it may be a long time
before /*- ( and /** ) is no longer the majority in the source code.


More varies, such as the ordering:

14.3:

       /*-
	* SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-2-Clause
	*
	* Copyright (c)	1984-2025 John Q. Public
	*
	* Long,	boring license goes here, but trimmed for brevity
	*/

14.4:

       /*
	* Copyright (c)	1984-2025 John Q. Public
	*
	* SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-2-Clause
	*/

Unless some tool requirements force the issue somehow, again I'd guess a
lack of desire for churn for the distinctions.


-- 
===
Mark Millard
marklmi at yahoo.com