Copyright in About dialog is inaccurate.

[pixelzoom]

The Copyright in the About dialog seems to have a problem. For example, see the screenshot below from the published version of Make A Ten. The version was published on 2024-04-03, but the copyright says 2004-2016.

Relevant code is probably in AboutDialog.ts:

// Show the brand copyright statement, if it exists
if ( Brand.copyright ) {
  const year = phet.chipper.buildTimestamp ? // defined for built versions
               phet.chipper.buildTimestamp.split( '-' )[ 0 ] : // e.g. "2017-04-20 19:04:59 UTC" -> "2017"
               new Date().getFullYear(); // in unbuilt mode

[zepumph]

I believe this is a bug for all sims that do not have this commit in it (circa 4/2017).

713d722
phetsims/brand@f4b72ca

Let's ask @kathy-phet if she wants an MR for this, but perhaps we should first get the list of published sims without this commit.

[zepumph]

I ran these two lines in the maintenance REPL to discover what really old release branches we have without that 2017 commit. Here is that list.

  m.createPatch( 'joist', 'temp test for fun and glory' );
  m.addNeededPatchesBefore( 'joist', '713d722b16ef673d05a788904ee3e723c9490751' );

• area-builder 1.1 phet
• arithmetic 1.0 phet
• balancing-act 1.1 phet
• bending-light 1.1 phet
• charges-and-fields 1.0 phet
• charges-and-fields 1.0-phetio phet-io
• color-vision 1.1 phet
• color-vision 1.2-phetio phet-io
• concentration 1.5-phetio phet-io
• energy-skate-park-basics 1.1 phet
• energy-skate-park-basics 1.3-phetio phet-io
• faradays-law 1.3-phetio phet-io
• forces-and-motion-basics 2.1-phetio phet-io
• hookes-law 1.0 phet
• least-squares-regression 1.1 phet
• make-a-ten 1.0 phet
• molecules-and-light 1.3-phetio phet-io
• neuron 1.1 phet
• trig-tour 1.0 phet
• under-pressure 1.1 phet
• unit-rates 1.0 phet
• wave-on-a-string 1.1 phet

So to be clear, the above sim releases have a copyright date that is pinned to the year in which it was originally published. Taking a random one from above, and loading it on the website shows the same thing as the original issue comment here. Though the most recent MR was a week ago, the copyright date says 2016.

Over to @kathy-phet and planning people to see what the priority of the fix is. I believe at a previous dev meeting we decided that this discussion can take place via the Monday MR board, so I'll add that label as the next step.

[zepumph]

This was discussed during Dev meeting today. It was not deemed a desirable improvement from the developer perspective, and so we deferred it and removed it from the dev priorities project board.