Re: Improve GDB's first user experience by reducing "print_gdb_version" output

[Mark Wielaard <mark@klomp.org>]

Hi,

On Tue, May 27, 2025 at 05:38:57PM -0400, Paul Smith via Gdb wrote:
> On Tue, 2025-05-27 at 17:43 -0300, Guinevere Larsen via Gdb wrote:
> > I'm sending this here in case there is some rule that forces us to
> > write the copyright or free software status at initialization, before
> > spending the time to turn this into a patch.
> 
> I had remembered that interactive programs should generate copyright
> information at startup, but the most I can find in the current GNU
> Maintainer's manual is

The GPL itself contains the recommendation at the end (after the
actual terms and conditions) in the section "How to Apply These Terms
to Your New Programs". It is even shorter than Guinevere's suggestion,
it recommends outputting just 4 lines:

  If the program does terminal interaction, make it output a short
  notice like this when it starts in an interactive mode:

    <program>  Copyright (C) <year>  <name of author>
    This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `show w'.
    This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
    under certain conditions; type `show c' for details.

  The hypothetical commands `show w' and `show c' should show the
  appropriate parts of the General Public License.  Of course, your
  program's commands might be different; for a GUI interface, you
  would use an "about box".

Cheers,

Mark