Copyleft-next should not do unilateral disarmament via the sunset clause

[Richard Fontana]

On Sun, Jul 6, 2025 at 8:10 PM Bradley M. Kuhn <bkuhn at ebb.org> wrote:
>
> 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 agree.

> 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?

Not sure but I suspect this may be related to the datacenter migration
that Fedora has been undergoing recently.

Richard