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by nordsieck 2115 days ago
This seems like a fundamentally bad idea for software.

Simply put, living software contains a constant stream of patches, which "reset" the clock continuously.

It would be one thing if this license were used on a book or some other work which is substantially finished. Once the book is published, the clock starts ticking and users eventually get to the MIT pot of gold at the end of the timer.

With software, the only time that happens if after the software is abandoned. At that point, there's rarely many people interested in using it anyhow.
2 comments
Animats 2115 days ago
Yes, that looks like a problem:

...to distribute or communicate copies of the Original Work and Derivative Works to the public, with the proviso that copies of Original Work or Derivative Works that You distribute or communicate shall be licensed under this Transitive Grace Period Public Licence no later than 12 months after You distributed or communicated said copies

It looks like the effect is that the public versions must always lag a year behind the proprietary versions.

So, this isn't open source, although it is abandonware protection.

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mncharity 2115 days ago
> public versions [...] lag

That was the ghostscript licensing for many years. Recent versions available under a commercial license, and older versions as open source.

Nowadays would have to worry more about security and backporting fixes.

One challenge is it discourages contribution.

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GranPC 2115 days ago
I haven't read the license fully, but wouldn't that just mean you would be able to use releases that are older than the time period specified?
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rpdillon 2115 days ago
That's my reading as well. It's actually kind of funny to me: the term of copyright has grown so long that folks are essentially looking for ways to reimplement reasonable copyright term length inside of the construct of copyright protection itself.
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nordsieck 2115 days ago
> wouldn't that just mean you would be able to use releases that are older than the time period specified?

That is a fair point.

Depending on the type of software and the frequency of bug fixes that may be a more or less reasonable strategy.

Also, in case you haven't read the license, the time period is 12 months.

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