[copyleft-next] Limited-term copyleft

"Claes Wallin (韋嘉誠)" clacke+gmail at lysator.liu.se
Wed Feb 20 13:54:18 UTC 2013


On 2013-02-17 11:10, Angelos Oikonomopoulos wrote:
> 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.

... or indeed in the same way as third-party benificiaries to the 
copyleft-next 0.2.0. :-)

> 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.

Ok, I have thought about it.

I think one advantage of escrow compared to release upon expiration is 
that it requires at least a reasonable effort to get the CCS, and to 
show some minimally credible CCS before being able to extend another 
five years.

For an applicant that is not malicious, merely unorganized, this could 
create benefits for the public, although it's difficult to say how great.

Another advantage is if the copyright owners or at least the people 
capable of producing the CCS disappear during the second five-year-term. 
By putting it in escrow it enforces the need to do the work of packaging 
it all up before getting the extension.


If analysis shows that this kind of escrow would give enough benefits, 
that the risk of the source code being useless for reproducing the 
binaries is too great, then I can imagine a stronger model:

Source code is published, but with all rights reserved, except the right 
to use the source to produce a working binary and verify its function.

-- 
    /c


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