allow different copyright statement

[Peter Johansson]

In particular I would like to allow the transposed format

Copyright (C) 2006, 2007 Jane Doe
Copyright (C) 2007, 2008 Jari Häkkinen
Copyright (C) 2008 Peter Johansson

[Peter Johansson]

GCS now allows ranges in copyright statement, i.e.,

Copyright (C) 1984-1986 Jane Doe

​http://savannah.gnu.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=6576

[Peter Johansson]

How should the lines be sorted in that case?

Should it be:

# Copyright (C) 2003 Daniel Dalevi
# Copyright (C) 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008. 2009 Jari Hakkinen
# Copyright (C) 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 Peter Johansson
# Copyright (C) 2007, 2008 Markus Ringner

or

# Copyright (C) 2003 Daniel Dalevi
# Copyright (C) 2007, 2008 Markus Ringner
# Copyright (C) 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008. 2009 Jari Hakkinen
# Copyright (C) 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 Peter Johansson

You want early contributors to appear higher but also later ones to appear lower. But in this case both Jari and Peter are contributing both before and after Markus, so should they appear before or after him in the copyright statement? Configurable? A third alternative would be to sort regarding to the order in config.txt; that's how the order is decided within a line in current format.

[Jari Häkkinen]

Replying to peter:

# Copyright (C) 2003 Daniel Dalevi
# Copyright (C) 2007, 2008 Markus Ringner
# Copyright (C) 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008. 2009 Jari Hakkinen
# Copyright (C) 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 Peter Johansson

Without too much thinking I prefer the above one. It displays time order of contribution better than the other. Basically, you are still very active and appear late in the list. Markus has not contributed in a long time and should disappear into the middle of the list. Of course, we also have the original type of copyright listing and I assume it is going to be kept as an option?

[Peter Johansson]

Replying to jari:

Of course, we also have the original type of copyright listing and I assume it is going to be kept as an option?

Yes, the current format will be kept as default.