And since BSD, GPL, etc are on-going and collective enterprises, the copyright extends 70 yrs past the death of the last surviving author, assuming that one could find them or track down who all they are. So under the SonnyBoneheadTheftofCopyrightAct the copyright extends into the next century and the works do not enter the public domain unless BSD, GPL etc decidely limit the copyright or maintain strict version control and records into the next century.
This whole notion of extending copyright well past the time that records generally exist is so arrogantly stupid that personally I wonder if that tree wasn't devinely placed there.
Noah silva <nsilva@atari-source.com> Sent by: owner-dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
07/09/2003 05:59 AM
Please respond to dvd-discuss
To: dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
cc:
Subject: [dvd-discuss] OT: GPL, etc.
He he, no I don't want to start or participate in any flame war, about
GPL, RMS, or anything else. As a practical matter, GPL works well for
preventing things like "Microsoft Kerberos", and maybe it is restricting
for a good reason, but restricting is restricting. If I have something
sitting on my desk, and I can do less with it (f.e. copyright it as mine,
whatever), then there is less freedom. Personally, I think allowing
commercial versions of free software (Ala Netscape, StarOffice) can be a
good idea, so long as there is -some- protection against
incompatibility. SISSL is a little more flexible than GPL in this regard.
But as a technical matter, even BSD is more restrictive (and less
"Free") than public domain, because it places additional requirements
above and beyond public domain.
-- noah silva
On Tue, 8 Jul 2003, D. C. Sessions wrote:
> On Tuesday 08 July 2003 17:08, John Zulauf wrote:
> # Quick, someone invoke "Nazis" and end this religious-war-thread. If you
> # don't I might have to start quoting either RMS or Brett Glass --
> # whomever will annoy the most pro (or anti) GPL zealots.
>