Copyright alterations

[David Holmes]

Andrew John Hughes said the following on 04/10/10 10:30:
> I just noticed this huge changeset that went into the hs17 branch of HotSpot:
> 
> http://hg.openjdk.java.net/hsx/hsx17/master/rev/885e7f460925
> 
> It alters all the copyright notices from Sun to Oracle.
> Interestingly, it seems to change
> the range of some copyright notices:
> 
> e.g. from http://hg.openjdk.java.net/hsx/hsx17/master/diff/885e7f460925/src/os_cpu/linux_zero/vm/vmStructs_linux_zero.hpp
> 
> - * Copyright 2003-2007 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
> + * Copyright (c) 2003, 2007, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights
> reserved.
> 
> 2003-2007 and 2003, 2007 are not equivalent; one is a range also
> including 2004, 2005 and 2006 and the other is not, it's just 2003 and
> 2007.
> Such a change seems wrong to me.

First I am not a lawyer. :)

This is the way Oracle expresses its copyright notices. A range is still 
implied. The first year is the first year of copyright; the second year 
is the year of the most recent change to the file/document. Copyright 
still applies across all years in between.

Cheers,
David Holmes