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As far as I can find online, this is an edge case that's unlikely to ever be relevant. Dutch law allows the voiding of licenses after "unreasonably long" terms

As far as I can find online, this is an edge case that's unlikely to ever be relevant. Dutch law allows the voiding of licenses after "unreasonably long" terms. One suspects that it would be hard to show that a term is unreasonably long when you're talking about a contribution to open source software. In Poland, there's a limit of five years, on the author's wish, with one year's notice. Fair enough, a Polish contributor might possibly demand that their code be taken out of a projects with a year's notice. It seems unlikely that many Polish devs will exercise this right, since, if their contributions are significant, it would probably result in blacklisting, and if not significant, it would probably not be worth it. But I suppose it could happen. If it happened often, Polish devs would likely stop being welcome to contribute to open source projects. In Canada, there is automatic time-based reversion of rights 25 years after the author's death. So if you write code at 35, and die at 80, your estate could conceivably demand that your code could be removed from a project 70 years after you wrote it. Similarly, in the United States, you can revert your rights after going through some process and paying a fee after 35 years. The probability of any of these things happening seems sufficiently remote that it doesn't seem worth worrying about. Technically these CLAs might not actually grant perpetual licenses, but in practice they're likely close enough.

shakna 5y ago
I don't think you've quite understood the risk, here. > Fair enough, a Polish contributor might possibly demand that their code be taken out of a projects with a year's notice. It seems unlikely that many Polish devs will exercise this right, since, if their contributions are significant, it would probably result in blacklisting, and if not significant, it would probably not be worth it. But I suppose it could happen. If it happened often, Polish devs would likely stop being welcome to contribute to open source projects. This is the same for Australian developers. This is also where the primary risk is, and it cannot be mitigated by _any_ copyright license. At any point in time the authour can revoke the license, which is an unlikely event, but because of how licensing works, they can revoke the license for _one individual or corporation_, as well. For example, it is conceivable that someone who has contributed to a large project, say... Linux, has an issue with one particular corporation who have been found to acting unethically, say... Google. They can revoke the right to use their contributions to the Linux kernel by Google. They don't have to supply a reason for it. This is thus far untested in court, but that is what the current copyright framework allows for. The developer may risk blackballing themselves, but they may also not care at all. They may do so by making it about idealism, in which case what they are capable of has little to do with their own personal future.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
  > This is the same for Australian developers. I don't see any sign of this being the case in my searching. This document (https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=628b5bca-b7d5-492b-8b9f-ee5a755e7917 https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=628b5bca-b7d5...) suggests that Australia does recognize perpetual licenses ("Does the law in your jurisdiction recognise the validity of ‘perpetual’ software licences? ... Yes."). Would you provide a citation? > For example, it is conceivable that someone who has contributed to a large project, say... Linux, has an issue with one particular corporation who have been found to acting unethically, say... Google. They can revoke the right to use their contributions to the Linux kernel by Google. They don't have to supply a reason for it. As noted above, I'm skeptical that this right exists in Australia. But if it does, the worst that would happen is that a person's contributions would need to be removed from Linux. There are probably a handful of individuals who own the copyright to their works whose contributions would be difficult to replace, but most of them probably have sufficient economic or other incentives not to do something like what you're describing. That vast majority of new code written in Linux is written by employees of large corporations and isn't subject to this risk the same way. > This is thus far untested in court To say the least. It seems likely to me that courts in many jurisdictions would decide that an open source bait and switch was not what their corresponding legislatures had in mind when drafting license reversion rules. This risk seems unlikely to me, because you'd need a dev with plenty of wealth to pay lawyers, who also really hates some company beyond any practical economic extent, and also contributed a lot to Linux as a private individual. I don't know how many of that type of person you're going to find.
  - shakna 5y ago
    > As noted above, I'm skeptical that this right exists in Australia. The right to control the integrity of one's work is a Moral Right, and moral rights fall outside of copyrights in Australia. A very basic introduction is here [0]. Granting the use of a work in perpetuity is permitted, but revoking that perpetuity is also permitted and cannot be limited. > But if it does, the worst that would happen is that a person's contributions would need to be removed from Linux. In the example I gave, Linux wouldn't need to make that change, as the revocation only occurred for a single sublicensee. The Foundation might choose to make that change, but they also might not. > because you'd need a dev with plenty of wealth to pay lawyers, who also really hates some company beyond any practical economic extent, and also contributed a lot to Linux as a private individual. I don't know how many of that type of person you're going to find. Individuals like Richard Stallman? He may not have direct wealth, but he has the means to obtain it. And the ideology necessary to become a thorn in the side of a particular corporation if he so chooses. [0] https://www.copyright.org.au/browse/book/ACC-Moral-Rights-INFO043 https://www.copyright.org.au/browse/book/ACC-Moral-Rights-IN...

shakna 5y ago

I don't think you've quite understood the risk, here. > Fair enough, a Polish contributor might possibly demand that their code be taken out of a projects with a year's notice. It seems unlikely that many Polish devs will exercise this right, since, if their contributions are significant, it would probably result in blacklisting, and if not significant, it would probably not be worth it. But I suppose it could happen. If it happened often, Polish devs would likely stop being welcome to contribute to open source projects. This is the same for Australian developers. This is also where the primary risk is, and it cannot be mitigated by _any_ copyright license. At any point in time the authour can revoke the license, which is an unlikely event, but because of how licensing works, they can revoke the license for _one individual or corporation_, as well. For example, it is conceivable that someone who has contributed to a large project, say... Linux, has an issue with one particular corporation who have been found to acting unethically, say... Google. They can revoke the right to use their contributions to the Linux kernel by Google. They don't have to supply a reason for it. This is thus far untested in court, but that is what the current copyright framework allows for. The developer may risk blackballing themselves, but they may also not care at all. They may do so by making it about idealism, in which case what they are capable of has little to do with their own personal future.

asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
> This is the same for Australian developers. I don't see any sign of this being the case in my searching. This document (https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=628b5bca-b7d5-492b-8b9f-ee5a755e7917 https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=628b5bca-b7d5...) suggests that Australia does recognize perpetual licenses ("Does the law in your jurisdiction recognise the validity of ‘perpetual’ software licences? ... Yes."). Would you provide a citation? > For example, it is conceivable that someone who has contributed to a large project, say... Linux, has an issue with one particular corporation who have been found to acting unethically, say... Google. They can revoke the right to use their contributions to the Linux kernel by Google. They don't have to supply a reason for it. As noted above, I'm skeptical that this right exists in Australia. But if it does, the worst that would happen is that a person's contributions would need to be removed from Linux. There are probably a handful of individuals who own the copyright to their works whose contributions would be difficult to replace, but most of them probably have sufficient economic or other incentives not to do something like what you're describing. That vast majority of new code written in Linux is written by employees of large corporations and isn't subject to this risk the same way. > This is thus far untested in court To say the least. It seems likely to me that courts in many jurisdictions would decide that an open source bait and switch was not what their corresponding legislatures had in mind when drafting license reversion rules. This risk seems unlikely to me, because you'd need a dev with plenty of wealth to pay lawyers, who also really hates some company beyond any practical economic extent, and also contributed a lot to Linux as a private individual. I don't know how many of that type of person you're going to find.
- shakna 5y ago
  > As noted above, I'm skeptical that this right exists in Australia. The right to control the integrity of one's work is a Moral Right, and moral rights fall outside of copyrights in Australia. A very basic introduction is here [0]. Granting the use of a work in perpetuity is permitted, but revoking that perpetuity is also permitted and cannot be limited. > But if it does, the worst that would happen is that a person's contributions would need to be removed from Linux. In the example I gave, Linux wouldn't need to make that change, as the revocation only occurred for a single sublicensee. The Foundation might choose to make that change, but they also might not. > because you'd need a dev with plenty of wealth to pay lawyers, who also really hates some company beyond any practical economic extent, and also contributed a lot to Linux as a private individual. I don't know how many of that type of person you're going to find. Individuals like Richard Stallman? He may not have direct wealth, but he has the means to obtain it. And the ideology necessary to become a thorn in the side of a particular corporation if he so chooses. [0] https://www.copyright.org.au/browse/book/ACC-Moral-Rights-INFO043 https://www.copyright.org.au/browse/book/ACC-Moral-Rights-IN...