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
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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