Re: Years in copyright notices

[Richard Stallman]

    What is a "small change", 3-4 lines changed?  And do many small changes
    eventually become a big change that needs to change the year?

I think the threshold should be 10 lines of new code, the same as the
threshold for needing legal papers.  If over 10 to 15 lines of new
code have been introduced in a file during a year, that year should be
mentioned.

This is the situation now that we have an accessible CVS repository,
so that every version of every file is always released.  In the past,
the situation was different; years in which there was no release did
not count, and the changes in those years all counted towards the year
of the following release.

    Is it enough to compare the file now with the version for the previous
    year and count changed and added lines,

It would do no harm to handle it this way.