[copyleft-next] Limited-term copyleft

Theodore Ts'o tytso at mit.edu
Thu Feb 14 19:15:28 UTC 2013


On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 08:13:28AM -0800, Luis Villa wrote:
> 
> The relicensing issue is a bit of a clincher for me; I had not been
> strongly leaning one way or the other but it seems like a real,
> valuable win.

I wonder if there's a way we could make this be automatic way of doing
relicensing.

Specifically, consider the potential process where the project states
that all new code commited into the project repository will be
released under the following meta-license: "Before date XXXXX, this
code is licensed under copyleft-next 1.0; after date XXXX, this code
is licensed under the terms described under copyleft-next 2.0."

This would mean that it would take ten years (or whatever the timeout
period might be) to transition to a new license, but it means that it
eliminates one of the excuses for wanting CLA's, with all of the
disincentives to developers joining a process because of a requirement
to sign legal documents before a developer can participate in a
project.

							- Ted


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