Which of us has overlooked something?
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| bremac Jan 05, 2008 5:25 PM EDT |
Perhaps it's only my misunderstanding, but a derivative/legally modified work is a copyrighted work as well, and therefore each significant change is too, much like a renewal. This means that the copyrights would only expire on the code as it was x years ago, and not as it is now. Honestly, I don't have any problem with old code falling into the public domain after, say, five years - is anyone really going to gain a major advantage from a project as it stood at some arbitrary point in the past? All that would really do is dump the equivalent of RHL 9 (the original release) into the public domain in a bitrotten state, which I highly doubt anyone would be interested in stealing. Or perhaps this was known and meant to be implied, but was overlooked in a bout of fear mongering... |
| azerthoth Jan 05, 2008 5:47 PM EDT |
Your correct one one point, the changes themselves, if copyright were left to short term expire instead of done away with for functional works would still maintain protection. The original however would not and as changes came to term they too would of course fall into public domain. |
| JesseW Jan 05, 2008 6:39 PM EDT |
(Moved to a separate thread) |
| JesseW Jan 05, 2008 6:45 PM EDT |
azer--
While I'm glad to see you responding to comments here, you don't seem to have responded to bremac's central point, which is, as I understand it, the fact that the current version of any GPL-licensed program would still be only available under the GPL. I'm not sure how important it is that 3 year old versions of GPLed programs could be incorporated into proprietary programs -- if this really is critical, please explain why. |
| azerthoth Jan 05, 2008 7:19 PM EDT |
Very simply put, to maintain the freedoms associated with Open Sourced Software a shelf life is something that is not needed. How much of the code underlying the "current" packages is essentially unchanged over that period of time is the question that needs to be asked. If the release of code into public domain had been the intent of the developers in the first place, one would think that that is exactly what they could have done. Being four or five years old does not mean that the code is stale or outdated and taking such a simplistic look on it as being "bitrotten" falls well short of reality. One of the basic tenets of Open Source is that you can use it and change it, but if it is anything short of a change to a personal copy then one MUST share that code. RMS's take on copyright if made by anyone else would be immediately called an attack on open source. and to answer your own question, which you seperated, I had no wish to name RMS specifically in the article. |
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