On 02/13/2013 10:40 PM, Richard Fontana wrote:
Does anyone think the idea of a limited-term copyleft -- particularly given that copyleft-next is a software-oriented license -- is a good/bad idea?
We're now a few years from the point where there could be 30-year-old code under GPL-like licenses. I have found from $DAYJOB experience that one occasionally has to deal with legal issues concerning *really* old code (in a situation I dealt with today, from 1979; admittedly that's unusual).
The idea would be to have the copyleft terms disappear after some limited period far short of the statutory copyright term.
This is of course conceptually similar to the Creative Commons 'Founder's Copyright' idea and is related to general criticisms of present-day copyright term duration.
If anyone thinks it's a good idea, what would be a good copyleft duration? 15, 20, 25 years?
Please do not hesitate to shoot this down.
- RF
copyleft-next mailing list copyleft-next@lists.fedorahosted.org https://lists.fedorahosted.org/mailman/listinfo/copyleft-next
Perhaps you might explain further the situation with the code you encountered today? I would like to see some further background on this edge case and your reasoning before even considering a shoot-down. Some of our kernel hacking compatriots can tell us what the lifespan of a piece of code **that is in active use** may be these days, I suppose.
Stephen Michael Kellat