[copyleft-next] "reasonable time period" Termination enforceability (was Re: Update)

Luis Villa luis at tieguy.org
Tue Jul 31 02:14:19 UTC 2012


On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 7:08 PM, Richard Fontana
<fontana at sharpeleven.org> wrote:
> On 07/30/2012 07:35 PM, Bradley M. Kuhn wrote:
>> Richard Fontana wrote:
>>> One of the more significant changes is a substantial simplification of
>>> the termination section. .... I've replaced it with one cure period and
>>> I just refer to a "reasonable time period" .. I'm not convinced that
>>> it's better not to have a fixed time period for cure, though I am
>>> convinced that a 30-day and a 60-day provision are not both needed.
>>
>> And thus master branch of copyleft-next now reads:
>>>> However, if You cure such failure within a reasonable time period after
>>>> becoming aware of such noncompliance, then Your rights are reinstated.
>>
>> I strongly believe this will make copyleft-next de-facto unenforceable.
>> We'd have to litigate it all the way to the bitter end to get a ruling
>> that "reasonable time period" is less than the average life cycle of most
>> electronics and software products.
>>
>> In my experience, nearly all copyleft violators believe it's reasonable to come
>> into compliance only after a product is off the market.  And most would
>> happily say "see you in Court" if a copyright holder says otherwise.
>>
>> Even those violators who make vague, half-hearted attempts to come into
>> compliance still believe heavily protracted schedules are reasonable.  For
>> example, I've got compliance actions open today that were first opened last
>> fall, and I'm sure the lawyers would argue, that they're still "within a
>> reasonable time period" and tell me to sue them if I disagreed (of course,
>> I already do disagree).  As everyone knows, because I know the community
>> prefers that we avoid lawsuits, I desperately avoid them until there is
>> just no other choice, but violators' lawyers now know this too, of course,
>> and play chicken.
> [...]
>> My point, simply: I think copyleft-next will have to chose between >
> naming a specific number of days, or be effectively unenforcable.
>
> This is precisely the reason (well, one reason) why I hoped you might
> post to this list, since there are very few people in the world other
> than you who have dealt with the practical issues surrounding GPL
> enforcement (on the licensor/copyright holder side, of course).
>
> Do you have views on what fixed period is 'default reasonable'? 60
> days? As I've said, I don't want a 30-day and 60-day dual scheme,
> since I can't see how the added complexity is justified. Review of the
> history of GPLv3 drafting shows that the FSF started out with just the
> 60-day repose idea. I will check into any public archives relating to
> MPL 2.0 drafting to see why Mozilla decided to adapt the 30/60 day
> dual approach for MPL 2.0 (or if Luis is reading this he may be able
> to explain or point to something :).

We saw no reason to deviate from what GPL v3 was doing in this regard;
it seemed reasonable/workable and GPL compatibility was a significant
goal for us at the time.

The two-stage approach is also reasonable, I think, because
licensee-notice+cure is different from self-awareness+cure. I can
understand why you'd want to slim it down to a single period, though.

Luis


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