Re: Can we have gnulib-tool.py emit the same copyright header?

[Bruno Haible <bruno@clisp.org>]

Hi Collin,

> When creating a Makefile for example, the diff between gnulib-tool and
> gnulib-tool.py is:
> 
> diff --git a/lib/gnulib.mk.in b/lib/gnulib.mk.in
> index a718c17c0e8..15d15970051 100644
> --- a/lib/gnulib.mk.in
> +++ b/lib/gnulib.mk.in
> @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
>  ## DO NOT EDIT! GENERATED AUTOMATICALLY!
> -# Copyright (C) 2002-2024 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
> +# Copyright (C) 2024 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
> 
> The gnulib-tool.py one only does a single year instead of the range.
> 
> This diff is copied from the attached patch:
> 
> diff --git a/pygnulib/GLInfo.py b/pygnulib/GLInfo.py
> index 808f11b06f..1759368268 100644
> --- a/pygnulib/GLInfo.py
> +++ b/pygnulib/GLInfo.py
> @@ -80,8 +80,6 @@ class GLInfo(object):
>          '''Return formatted string which contains copyright.
>          The special __copyright__ variable is used (type is str).'''
>          copyright = __copyright__
> -        # Per the GNU Coding Standards, show only the last year.
> -        copyright = re.compile('^[0-9]*-').sub('', copyright)
>          result = 'Copyright (C) %s' % copyright
>          return result

When I wrote this piece of code (2022-08-05), it was for the --version
output. I had apparently overlooked that the method GLInfo.copyright
also gets used in other contexts than for processing the --version
option.

> The GNU Maintainer guide seems to disagree with this comment (assuming
> that gnulib-tool.py is not a separate package) [1]. Am I missing
> something or can we make this change?
> 
> [1] https://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/maintain.html#Copyright-Notices

In *files*, the copyright notice should contain the first and the last year
of modification; a range <first>-<last> is OK. [1]

In *--version output*, the copyright notice should contain only the last year.
[2]

Bruno

[1] https://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/Copyright-Notices.html
[2] https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/_002d_002dversion.html