[README] Add note about copyright and license notices

Also explain the use of year ranges in copyright notices.

gdb/ChangeLog:

        * README (Copyright and License Notices): New section.

diff --git a/gdb/ChangeLog b/gdb/ChangeLog
index 266f387..b68d64c 100644 (file)
--- a/gdb/ChangeLog
+++ b/gdb/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+2012-01-04  Joel Brobecker  <brobecker@adacore.com>
+
+       * README (Copyright and License Notices): New section.
+
 2012-01-03  Tom Tromey  <tromey@redhat.com>
 
        PR python/12533:

diff --git a/gdb/README b/gdb/README
index d79fecc..999f992 100644 (file)
--- a/gdb/README
+++ b/gdb/README
@@ -638,6 +638,26 @@ testsuite `standalone', without it being part of the GDB source tree.
 
 See the DejaGNU documentation for further details.
 
+
+Copyright and License Notices
+=============================
+
+Most files maintained by the GDB Project contain a copyright notice
+as well as a license notice, usually at the start of the file.
+
+To reduce the length of copyright notices, consecutive years in the
+copyright notice can be combined into a single range.  For instance,
+the following list of copyright years...
+
+    1986, 1988, 1989, 1991-1993, 1999, 2000, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011
+
+... is abbreviated into:
+
+    1986, 1988-1989, 1991-1993, 1999-2000, 2007-2011
+
+Every year of each range, inclusive, is a copyrightable year that
+could be listed individually.
+
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