On 6/7/05, Glenn Maynard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > It's not so much projects that are actually around for 35 years. Rather, > if you maintain a project for, say, three or four years, I reuse large > chunks of it in my own project, and my project outlives yours. Decades > later, you (or your heirs) have a change of heart, and revoke the license > you originally granted to me for your project, which I require to use your > code in mine. You don't control 50% of my work, but you easily control > 50% of the work you licensed. If I want my work to remain free, I have > to excise your code from it--which, decades later, probably won't be > possible. It's a textbook failure of the "tentacles of evil" test.
This whole line of argument is a canard based on a failure to research the meaning of "authorship" under US law. See Aalmuhammed v. Lee ( http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/202_F3d_1227.htm ), and observe that the 17 USC 203 termination right is reserved to _authors_ and their heirs, not contributors of any quantum of expression that might by itself be copyrightable. Cheers, - Michael
