Re: New 'Public Domain' Licence
On Tue, Jun 07, 2005 at 06:26:46PM -0700, Sean Kellogg wrote:
> > You are, as you say, talking about termination rights. But wouldn't
> > those be just as much an issue here as they are with, say, the GPL?
>
> Oh yes, termination rights are certainly an issue with the GPL. However, you
> can't exercise termination rights on a work unless you control 50% of the
> work. I suggest that most projects that will be around in 35 years are of
> such size that no one person will have true majority control.
It's not so much projects that are actually around for 35 years. Rather,
if you maintain a project for, say, three or four years, I reuse large
chunks of it in my own project, and my project outlives yours. Decades
later, you (or your heirs) have a change of heart, and revoke the license
you originally granted to me for your project, which I require to use your
code in mine. You don't control 50% of my work, but you easily control
50% of the work you licensed. If I want my work to remain free, I have
to excise your code from it--which, decades later, probably won't be
possible. It's a textbook failure of the "tentacles of evil" test.
--
Glenn Maynard
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