Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 00:08:14 -0700 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: Paul Murphy <paul@sd2.mailbank.com> Cc: cfuhrman@iwaynet.net, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Switching from LGPL to ??? License Message-ID: <3B8C94DE.EF72ACB3@mindspring.com> References: <999001492.3b8b8d94b71c3@webmail.iwaynet.net> <3B8BE7D5.B9A0B3A5@mindspring.com> <20010828215239.GVOK3082.femail41.sdc1.sfba.home.com@there>
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Paul Murphy wrote: > On August 28, 2001 02:49 pm, Terry Lambert wrote: > > If you think you might get hit by a bus, and want your code to > > survive you, you probably don't want the Sun Community Source > > License, the IBM Open Source License, or the Artistic License, > > since there will no longer be a seat of editorial control if > > you are no longer around, which would send the code into "limbo". > > > > Could you not assign these rights to someone in a Will? Potentially. This would limit the term of the license to 50 years following your death, which is the term of the copyright; ownership would devolve to your estate , without a will. Without creating _some_ instrument that will survive you, though, your code will not necessarily continue to be legally usable immediately following your death. As a historical precedent (though not involving death), the UCSD P-code system was licensed much as the Net/2 code was licensed by UC Berkeley. Then UCSD thought they might be able to make money off it, so they revoked their licenses, and started charging (everyone went to using other code, so their idea sucked). But they could not revoke Apple's license to the code (Apple used the UCSD P-code system in the Mac Toolbox code in the Macintosh ROM and Finder: that's where "handles" came from), since Apple had requested the license be granted in perpetuity. Similarly, UCB attempted to revoke the distribution of some of the Net/* releases of BSD code, since they claimed the BSD license was not non-revokable, and AT&T was legally forcing them to do the deed. This was ignored, after MIT offered to bankroll the legal fight, and DEC refused to take the code down off of Gatekeeper (admitting that the license was really revokable would have damaged their business, which used code derived from the Net/2 and other BSD code). I'm always tempted to have a lawyer draft a new version of the UCB license which grants rights in perpetuity, subject only to reciprical protection from legal claims, when this subject comes up. -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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