Changing the footer text in an easy way?

Not all themes have text in the footer of a site, so it’s not appropriate to add this to core. It should really be dealt with at a theme level.

A grey zone area then.
It would be nice if Core had it and that it could become recommended practice to use it. If it is visible or not is up to the themes.

Are you asking for this to be in Core just because it’s unlikely all theme authors will implement it?

Standards should be updated along the way not stay static.

Even though standards become updated will not mean all theme developers will implement them. But to stay current they will.

Agree.
Unfortunately a lot of free themes get outdated since the creator has lost interest in it. Maybe a different thing but..

As something changes whatever that follows along must also change with it.

Be it themes, plugins etc.
WordPress needs to evolve this means also trying to have best possible backward compatibility as possible. Which can also mean more code and more bloat. A consideration or perhaps a balance is always considered along the way.

I would say include features in Core that seem natural to add, some themes will include the changes others not. It should not slow down how WordPress evolves.

Something about the greater good for all….

[Link redacted by moderator – Please keep your suggestions on these forums]

Instead of adding everything to core, the decision was made to make WP flexible and extendable, so that users had the choice of how complicated they wanted to make their life.

A balance, indeed. Footers aren’t always copyright info, sometimes they’re wigets. And what about sites that have endless scroll? In order to meet all those needs, WP has wp_footer() which is used to inject what the theme (or plugin) wants.

As I mentioned it is about balance. Finding the balance is it seems the most difficult part.

Perhaps copyright info should be moved into a footer widget. Leaving wp_footer without any information, but open for developers to inject what they need/want.

Copyright isn’t required for all sites (and in fact, that’s put in by your theme, not core WP).

wp_footer() nativally only calls scripts ?? No content.