Re: [Fsuk-manchester] Copyright opinions

[roy.evison]

I would tend to agree but what two parties set up is between them unless 
published under particular auspices. Yes software will have a useful, or 
sellable, life-span but setting parameters may not be useful.If you are a 
free-lance developer how do you guarantee your income?

Roy.   
---- Simon Ward <address@hidden> wrote: 
> On Tue, Dec 01, 2009 at 08:55:57PM +0000, Luke Taylor wrote:
> > Naturally a copyright of (say) 10 years would mean that Linux 2.0.37
> > and GCC 2.95.2 and any other free software published more than 10
> > years ago would have their copylefts expire.
> 
> Fair does, it’s in the commons.  It only works if all software is
> subject to the same rules though.
> 
> > RMS suggests that this would be acceptable if proprietary software had
> > to surrender their source if the distribution was more than 10 years
> > old.
> 
> Whatever the copyright term is, I believe that the source should be
> available afterwards.
> 
> Copyright allows exclusive right for copying and redistribution of works
> for a period of time.  After that the work is in the public domain for
> others to reuse and build upon.  Software, especially compiled, becomes
> pretty much useless unless you have the source code to work with, so
> when the copyright term ends, software may become inaccessible.
> 
> > 1) Have I understood how this works correctly? Would everything based
> > on Linux 2.0.37 (ie. 2.6.31-15 ) become effectively BSD's or just the
> > older incarnation?
> 
> Not even BSD license variants: There’s no requirement to keep the
> license, or copyright notices with a work that’s out of copyright.
> 
> > 2) Would you oppose a law to reduce all copyright to 15 years (with no
> > clauses forcing proprietary software to surrender the source code)?
> 
> I would welcome it.  Out of copyright is almost free.  The 15 years of
> copyright allows reciprocal freedom to be enforced, and is more than
> enough time for free works to gain and keep hold.
> 
> > Yes it would harm free software a bit
> 
> Out of copyright software is free software.  As long as all software is
> subject to the same rules, I think it sort of balances out:  Proprietary
> software becomes free sooner, already free software loses requirements
> for reciprocating freedoms sooner.  This is much better if source code
> is available, but if not, software can be reverse engineered.
> 
> > (Or a lot? I honestly don't know how useful a 15 year old kernel would
> > be to a modern proprietary developer) but think how much culture would
> > be freed! Novels/music/plays/art etc.
> 
> I think different types of works should be subject to different
> copyright terms.
> 
> Software changes or loses value so rapidly that a short copyright term
> (5 years) would benefit all, and at the same time authors will still be
> able to gain from the exclusive copyright.  The incentive to create is
> still there.
> 
> If you reduce the copyright for written works to the same short term,
> there may be not enough incentive for many to create them.
> 
> I’d like works to be ultimately free, but somewhere there is a sweet
> spot between the amount of good quality works produced and the copyright
> term: This is the copyright balance.
> 
> > 3) If your answer to (2) is no, what about 25 years? How many years would 
> > you support?
> 
> Any reduction is better than none.  Baby steps.
> 
> If there is an easy and good way to define a major change to software (I
> don’t think changes to SLoC (source lines of code) would be a good
> measure) I think a very short copyright term, say one or two years,
> would be sufficient, with major developments on top of existing software
> being afforded a similar short (or shorter) copyright term.
> 
> That way, copyright might be used as an incentive not just to create
> software, but enhance it too.  This instead of being offered a larger
> incentive to reinvent the wheel each time.
> 
> Simon
> -- 
> A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a
> simple system that works.—John Gall