[copyleft-next] Limited-term copyleft

Angelos Oikonomopoulos a.oikonomopoulos at vu.nl
Sun Feb 17 03:10:21 UTC 2013


On 16/02/2013 06:42 μμ, "Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠)" wrote:
> On 2013-02-16 23:19, Angelos Oikonomopoulos wrote:
>> On 16/02/2013 06:41 πμ, "Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠)" wrote:
[...]
>>> Five, with the ability to extend with five more if registered and source
>>> code placed in escrow for the public upon expiration.
>>
>> How would source code escrow work? The only setup I can think of
>> involves you shipping a full (compiler and all) build system along with
>> the source, them building the binary for you and you only being allowed
>> to distribute the binaries that they have built. Doesn't sound very
>> practical (or trustworthy). Maybe you had something else in mind?
> 
> The standard for the code in escrow would be the same as for the CCS of
> GPL'ed binaries shipped today. If the source code is not usable, the
> person who would have benefited from it can sue you for damages, in a
> similar way as copyright owners are today suing people who ship
> derivatives of their GPL'ed code without proper CCS.

OK. My understanding was that the point of having the code in escrow
would be so that you wouldn't have to just rely on a legal obligation of
the other party (as said party might not even be around to sue anymore N
years in the future). I don't see what escrow adds on top of the legal
obligation in what you describe, but maybe I'm misunderstanding the
terminology.

BTW, I'm not sure this is on-topic anymore :)
Angelos


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