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Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2019 02:32:23 +0100
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To: Derick Rethans <derick@php.net>
Cc: Zeev Suraski <zeev@zend.com>, Nikita Popov <nikita.ppv@gmail.com>, 
	PHP internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Simplify license headers
From: peterkokot@gmail.com (Peter Kokot)

On Wed, 30 Jan 2019 at 13:57, Derick Rethans <derick@php.net> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 28 Jan 2019, Zeev Suraski wrote:
>
> >
> > > I would like to make two changes to this header:
> > >
> > > 1. Change "PHP Version 7" line to just "PHP", to avoid the necessity of updating this for
> > > new major versions. I don't think the version information here is particularly useful to
> > > anybody.
> >
> > I don't mind that much, but I don't see any issue with keeping it the way it is either.  It does look nicer the way it is now IMHO, and the cost associated with changing it twice a decade is, well, not very substantial.
> >
> > > 2. Remove the "Copyright (c) 1997-2018 The PHP Group" line. Apart from requiring a
> > > yearly update, this line is actually complete misinformation, because the PHP group
> > > does *not* hold the copyright for the PHP source code. This would require a copyright
> > > assignment agreement on behalf of all contributors, which we do not collect.
> > >
> > > We could also just drop the header entirely, I'm just proposing these two changes as
> > > the path of least resistance towards getting the "annoying" parts removed.
> >
> > I'm no lawyer, but I do believe a case can be made for claiming that a
> > person putting code into files with the header 'Copyright (c) XYZ', is
> > in fact implicitly assigning copyright to XYZ.  So while it's not as
> > strong as an explicit copyright assignment, and while it was never
> > tested in court (and hopefully never will be) - I do see value in
> > keeping it.  I certainly don't see a reason to change it after 20
> > years where it didn't seem to bother anybody, unless there's a strong
> > reason to do that, which currently I don't see.
>
> It could be changed to "1997-present" though, in which case it doesn't
> need updating once a year (and messing up history in VCS).
>
> cheers,
> Derick
>
> --
> PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List
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>

Hello,

I've prepared quick pull request [1] that fixes the missed headers in
source code files and additionally bumps or changes the year range on
other places.

Questions:

1.) What should "php -v" output regarding copyrights and year ranges?
2.) What should "man php" include under the COPYRIGHT section
regarding the year ranges?
3.) Similarly, should there be a common pattern for places like
phpinfo() output?

Thanks.

[1] https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/3791

-- 
Peter Kokot