4 ms·

Whether a vendor offers any kind of licensing for a software product and whether a vendor still has active copyright are two different matters.

• pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  If a vendor refuses to offer a license for a reasonable sum perhaps the law should allow a petition to relinquish the copyright and place the work in the public domain, the petition going to the relevant authority (the UK IP Office comptroller probably in the UK?). Or just let Google bypass the law and no-one else, as happened with orphaned books.
  • PeterisP 9y ago
    Perhaps it should, but currently it certainly does not; the copyright holder has the exclusive right to offer this product, and if they choose not to do so, noone else can.
  • jon-wood 9y ago
    That gets really fuzzy though, as I'm sure there's components in Windows 10 that's also present in Windows 2000. Are they required to relinquish those to the public domain as well?
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]