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Public Domain Enhancement Act reintroducedPublic Domain Enhancement Act reintroducedPosted May 24, 2005 15:46 UTC (Tue) by QuisUtDeus (guest, #14854)Parent article: Public Domain Enhancement Act reintroduced
How would the expiring of copyright affect GPL software? The same, it would seem. And so, any open source software whose distribution was regulated by GPL, BSD, etc. and whose copyright was not renewed would then be part of the public commons and free for any use or distribution whatsoever.
I guess this would be a good reason for authors to transfer copyright to some organization like EFF, who could then decide (and manage) if a given project's copyrights should be extended.
Am I missing something?
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What are you missing? Posted May 24, 2005 15:52 UTC (Tue) by clugstj (subscriber, #4020) [Link] I think what you are missing is that 50 year-old software has no value except as a curiosity. I don't think anyone will be using GCC 3.4.4, or Windows XP-SP2 in 50 years.
What are you missing? Posted May 24, 2005 16:00 UTC (Tue) by mmarsh (subscriber, #17029) [Link] That depends on how bad SP3 is...
What are you missing? Posted May 24, 2005 16:09 UTC (Tue) by kune (guest, #172) [Link] I'm not so sure. I'm pretty much convinced that software, that needs gcc and Windows XP APIs will be around in forty-fifty years from now. Probably that software will run in virtual-everything environments, but it will be there. OS/360 Job Command Language is still around since it's introduction in the sixties, which is more than 40 years now. There will be some GNU programms, which have little reason to change (sed, grep, gzip). I'm not sure whether changing (C) 1993 to (C) 1993-2044 will save you a dollar.
What are you missing? Posted May 24, 2005 17:27 UTC (Tue) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] It wouldn't hurt the GNU effort any to put extremely old versions in the public domain; the more recent and usable stuff would still be copylefted.For example, there was discussion some time back of a "Founder's Copyright". The idea was that the first American copyright law had a term of 14 years, renewable once for another 14 year term. The idea would be that a copyright holder could voluntarily agree to put a work in the public domain after 28 years. So, if RMS so decided, he could make the first public release of Emacs public domain in 2013 (1985+28). Such ancient software would only be of historical interest, and would probably have value only to researchers and historians. It wouldn't be of much value to the proprietary software developers of 2013.
What are you missing? Posted May 24, 2005 18:59 UTC (Tue) by boudewijn (subscriber, #14185) [Link] I once tried to find a really old version of Emacs and a really oldversion of the Gimp. The earliest Gimp I could find was 0.54 and that wasn't from any official website. I'm not sure anymore what the outcome of my searches for an ancient emacs version were -- but I came away with the idea that it might very well become really hard to find source code to application version from before the prime-time freeware CD distributions in the future.
What are you missing? Posted May 24, 2005 20:36 UTC (Tue) by emkey (guest, #144) [Link] I seem to recall emacs source being 10mb uncompressed around 1989 or so. I have no idea what it is today. In any case, given how small drives were at the time that may go a long way towards explaining why it is so hard to find really old versions of emacs.
I'm sure there are some old cartridge tapes out there with copies. Good luck reading 'em though.
What are you missing? Posted May 25, 2005 6:10 UTC (Wed) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] In those days (1985) you got your Emacs on a big fat 1600 bpi magtape, by mail, sent by RMS himself (back when he was sleeping on the floor at MIT and using the fees he charged for tape duplication to buy food).Yes, I'm old (though not as old as RMS).
What are you missing? Posted May 25, 2005 9:32 UTC (Wed) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link] 0.54 is a seriously old version of The GIMP (e.g. it's older than the GIMP toolkit itself). I don't know anyone who has run an earlier version, although obviously Spence & Pete must have had some reason to call it 0.54 rather than say 0.1 or 1.0...
The GIMP was a project for a class, so it's quite possible that earlier versions, especially those with substantially less functionality, never existed outside of a private version control system.
What are you missing? Posted May 25, 2005 8:18 UTC (Wed) by t_norup (subscriber, #14071) [Link] Definitely agreed. As software becomes more and more tightly integrated with increasingly expensive physical objects the age of the software will grow.
Example: In the airport (Copenhagen), I'm working for, we built a new terminal a few years ago. The terminal building has two tiers, one for Schengen passengers (which more or less are all passengers originating inside the EU) and one for non-Schengen passengers (ie. non-EU pax) which are required by law to be kept separate until their passports have been checked. In order to lead passengers from the two tiers through boading lounges onto the aircraft and vice versa, there is an elaborate system of doors and staircases. The business rules for opening and closing these doors are in reality law and are so complex that handling personnel cannot be expected to be able to follow them.
So, of course these these doors are computer-controlled! The point is that the software controlling these doors is likely to exist as long as we have non-Schengen passengers in Copenhagen and as long as the two-tiered terminal still stands. 50 years is not completely unrealistic.
I know of several similar examples of software passing its 30-year birthday
What are you missing? Posted May 25, 2005 22:59 UTC (Wed) by XERC (guest, #14626) [Link] Any employee, who happens to work near those doors forthe 50 years(a steward, cleaner, sales man, whoever), will know the behaviour of those doors by heart by the itme the 50 years has passed. The employee can rewrite the software for those doors, without ever even knowing or being heared of the law! :D
subroutines and libraries can have that lifespan Posted May 24, 2005 17:55 UTC (Tue) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link] While complete programs from 50 years ago may be mainly a curiosity, isolated subroutines and libraries can have that kind of lifespan. See, for example Netlib, which includes some numerical subroutines from the 1960s that are still widely used. (Most of these are in the public domain already, because prior to 1976 you had to explicitly write "copyright (c)" etc. in order to get copyright protection.)
What are you missing? Posted May 24, 2005 20:44 UTC (Tue) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link] You mean 75 to ~160 year-old software. Yes, copyright durations are justridiculously long, especially for software.
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