Hi, * Russ Allbery <[email protected]> [2026-08-29 00:00]:
Ansgar <[email protected]> writes:I don't think it matters for any recent code? Copyright usually expires x years after the authors death, so creation date isn't that relevant.Copyright in the US for works for hire expires after 95 years from its first publication. That's a common case for a lot of software.
Obviously, I am not a laywer.Do the expiration times not presuppose that the copyrighted work is in its final form at publication time (such as movies or books)? Free software, especially if it remains in widespread use, is continuously developed, updated, fixed and re-released, which (in my humble non-lawyer opinion) should reset the copyright expiration timer.
And if that's actually the case, I'd say any software which remains completely unmaintained for 95 years to trigger copyright expiration is very unlikely to be practically relevant, and will probably not even compile any more.
Cheers Timo -- ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ ╭────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮ ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ │ Timo Röhling │ ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ │ 9B03 EBB9 8300 DF97 C2B1 23BF CC8C 6BDD 1403 F4CA │ ⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀ ╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
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