Copyleft-next should not do unilateral disarmament via the sunset clause
Bradley M. Kuhn
bkuhn at ebb.org
Sun Jul 6 23:57:36 UTC 2025
I think at one point I supported the sunset clause … in an effort to be
realistic about how long software is actually useful without changes or
improvements (which of course would be newly copyrightable).
We should also consider the question of when copyleft contractual obligations
should sunset (and if they should).
These are complex questions, but I think starting from first principles,
cutting the existing sunset clause and design from scratch may make more
sense.
I'm curious what Fontana thinks since he added it in:
commit c2569e09be25540028979bf883d2f3a0c9d45d6f
Author: Richard Fontana <fontana at sharpeleven.org>
Date: Feb 19 2013
Add 'Copyleft Sunset' provision.
See mailing list thread "Limited-term copyleft" beginning at
https://lists.fedorahosted.org/pipermail/copyleft-next/2013-February/000499.html
Sadly that URL fails so I wonder if folks could find a better link to that
thread on the old list?
--
-- bkuhn, noting: IANAL & TINLA
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