On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 06:53:51AM +0100, Kuno Woudt wrote:
On 02/14/2013 04:40 AM, 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?
>
>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).
>
>The idea would be to have the copyleft terms disappear after some
>limited period far short of the statutory copyright term.
The only reason I can see for wanting this is to deal with copyleft
license compatibility issues. Which in my experience are not enough
of a problem to weaken the copyleft nature of the work in this way.
Out of curiosity: If you were writing a new copyright statute to cover
software, how long would you make the duration of copyright?
- RF