copyright years

[Roland McGrath <roland at frob dot com>]

> That's bullshit.  I'm not making the code less readable.  The two digit 
> notation is a US thing.  Almost nobody else uses it.  It therefore 
> cannot be acceptable.

Look.  The format of the copyright notices is determined by the copyright
holder, not by anyone else, not even people like all of us here who have
assignment contracts with the copyright holder governing the terms of work
we have contributed.  You can be as indignant as you like and you can make
all the perfectly reasonable arguments in the world, and it means diddly to
the legal obligations.  It does not matter what you or I say.  It only
matters what the FSF says, and I am just trying to be conscientious about
what the FSF said the last time (which was several years ago) it said
anything on the subject.  I will ask the FSF to get a fresh legal opinion
about this, since the legal opinions on other subtlties have changed over
the years.  If the FSF says it doesn't care one way or the other, then
fine.  I don't care personally in the slightest what the format is.  Using
ranges is preferable aesthetically because it keeps the lines from getting
long.  But I won't knowingly contradict the instructions of the copyright
holder.  Period.

As to the two-digit years, that is optional.  When I was originally told
not to use ranges and complained about the lines getting so long, they told
me that shortening years to two digits when unambiguous was ok.  I got into
the habit of doing it all the time because I hate it when the copyright
line reaches 80 chars.  But if you prefer leaving 4-digit years and long
lines or wrapping, then we can certainly do that without any new legal opinion.

You and Thomas may enjoy citing laws and bickering about it in detail, and
by all means do so as much as you like.  But neither of your opinions are
the ones that matter, and even when it is a case where the choice is your
own, you'd be fools to base your actions on your own legal analysis rather
than a professional one.