[copyleft-next] Limited-term copyleft
"Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠)"
copyleft-next at clacke.user.lysator.liu.se
Thu Feb 14 04:19:28 UTC 2013
On 2013-02-14 11:40, 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?
It is an excellent idea! I'd like to think this idea has been brewing in
your mind since I mentioned it about a year ago. :-)
I had the idea when I saw @zooko's license, which is precisely the
opposite -- permissive for two years (IIRC), then strengthening to copyleft.
> 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).
Yes. I view the "delayed permissive" function as an alternative way of
handling the license upgrade issue, one that removes any "or later" or
"decision proxy organization" complexities.
> 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.
I will look this up.
> If anyone thinks it's a good idea, what would be a good copyleft
> duration? 15, 20, 25 years?
15 years is a very long time. For example, bringing Linux 2.2 up to
shape to be commercially usable today would require a massive amount of
work. It's almost irrelevant for practical purposes what license Linux
2.2 is under.
If this is meant to have any practical effect, I would suggest 10 years
or even 5 years.
But couldn't this be up to the project licensing the software? Of
course, to make this useful in any way, the project would need to have a
clear policy that all incoming contributions would be under the same
delayed-permissive terms, so that one could look at a consistent
X-year-old tree and know that it was now permissively licensed.
> Please do not hesitate to shoot this down.
Leaving that to somebody else. I am enthusiastic that this has been
brought up.
For me, this kind of arrangement would be the main use of a
"permissive-next" license.
--
/c
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