23 ms·
> You're assuming the code doesn't have to be released as long as there exists something using it that isn't discontinued, but it can be the other way. As soon
> You're assuming the code doesn't have to be released as long as there exists something using it that isn't discontinued, but it can be the other way. As soon as you discontinue something, everything in it has to be released.
No, I'm interpreting this the way you're suggesting. And I'm saying it's insane. If company A sells a component to company B, and uses it in their product, and company B stops supporting it or goes out of business, now it needs to be open sourced? Every vendor has customers that have gone out of business or discontinued a product, so this is effectively a ban of all B2B closed source hardware or software components.
> If the law requires it to be released, you release it or you're in violation of the law.
So, to comply with your proposed law, companies can no longer sign NDAs with their vendors. They can no longer license patented hardware or software. They can no longer create products which have components with source restricted by trade law or product regulatory law. They can no longer license any closed-source hardware or software from any vendor. Do you realize this is a ban on approximately all commercially available computers, and a ban on many types of radio devices, including cellphones?
> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42443042 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42443042
That's a lot more reasonable argument, although it is unprecedented and unfounded. Copyright doesn't require any other authors of other works to release any foundational sources, and it never has. Authors don't have to release drafts or outlines of their books. Musicians don't have to release the constituent tracks of their final recordings. Artists and photographers don't have to release their PSD files. Patent protection works this way, but copyright never has.
> Every vendor has customers that have gone out of business or discontinued a product, so this is effectively a ban of all B2B closed source hardware or software components.
Not exactly. If you don't have to release it until support ends then you could require the licensee to provide support for a specific number of years and carry bankruptcy insurance that would pay for support to continue for that period of time, if you wanted to.
It would tend to cause the source code to be released after ten or twenty years, but what are you really protecting at that point? The source code for Windows XP and 3G cellular radios?
> Do you realize this is a ban on approximately all commercially available computers, and a ban on many types of radio devices, including cellphones?
It seems pretty likely that the vendors would choose to license the code under terms that would allow the source code to be published in that circumstance, since otherwise they have no customers.
> Copyright doesn't require any other authors of other works to release any foundational sources, and it never has.
Other media is distributed in a human-readable form rather than compiled into an opaque binary. If you want to make a derivative of Alice in Wonderland you can easily do it from a copy of the book as published without needing any of Lewis Carroll's notes. If you want to fix a firmware bug, doing it without the source code is commonly infeasible.
> bankruptcy insurance that would pay for support to continue
1. That isn't a thing
2. If your company doesn't exist, it doesn't really matter if you comply with the law anymore.
3. Insurance writes checks, it doesn't conduct business operations
> It seems pretty likely that the vendors would choose to license the code under terms that would allow the source code to be published in that circumstance, since otherwise they have no customers.
Except for all of the hardware and software that already exists, all of the patents that already exist, all of the different laws for hardware and software in every other country where closed-source software/hardware exists, and all of the laws here and everywhere else that restrict hardware or software for other reasons. I think it is much more likely that companies will comply with all of the rest of the operational and legal obligations they currently have, and instead, avoid legal nexus in your jurisdiction.
> 3G cellular radios?
It's not legal to open source a baseband radio in many countries because of the licensing requirements to use the spectrum. If you make this a requirement, and companies want to sell cellphones in other countries (they do) you have banned the manufacture of these devices in your country.
> It seems pretty likely that the vendors would choose to license the code under terms that would allow the source code to be published in that circumstance, since otherwise they have no customers.
It's more likely they will conduct operations outside of your jurisdiction, and continue their business as they currently do.
> Other media is distributed in a human-readable form rather than compiled into an opaque binary.
You don't "read" a piece of software the same way you don't "read" a song on the radio. Software runs on a computer, and songs play on a radio.
But even if we do interpret this your way -- copyright doesn't require anything at all to be published. You can create something, put it in a locked safe, and copyright still applies. You can't create a derivative work of my nudes on my phone, because I won't give them to you. They're still protected by copyright, though.
Your presumption that it is predicated on sharing is simply not factually correct. Copyright is and has only ever been about protecting creators rights. Only patent law is predicated on sharing.
> It's not legal to open source a baseband radio in many countries because of the licensing requirements to use the spectrum.
If anything, it may not be legal to operate modified firmware/hardware on public networks. It's perfectly fine to open source this stuff, and you can operate it in a lab given that you don't transmit anything outside of it.
> 1. That isn't a thing
> 2. If your company doesn't exist, it doesn't really matter if you comply with the law anymore.
> 3. Insurance writes checks, it doesn't conduct business operations
Insurance writes checks that you can contract to have fund whatever you want. You can make someone agree to carry insurance against bankruptcy so that if it happens the insurance pays out, and then require the payout to go into a trust whose purpose is to continue to support the hardware for the specified period of time, if that's what you want to do.
> It's not legal to open source a baseband radio in many countries because of the licensing requirements to use the spectrum. If you make this a requirement, and companies want to sell cellphones in other countries (they do) you have banned the manufacture of these devices in your country.
This can't realistically be the actual requirement. So if the source code to your phone firmware leaks on the internet it becomes illegal to sell the phone in these jurisdictions? What does it mean to be released? If you change two lines of code for the phones sold into that market, is that fine because the now-distinct code is unpublished, or is any phone with a Linux kernel on it illegal there -- or the Windows kernel which has BSD-licensed code in it -- because at least part of the code is public?
Any laws even resembling that should be repealed anyway.
> It's more likely they will conduct operations outside of your jurisdiction, and continue their business as they currently do.
The relevant jurisdiction is the one where the products are sold. If this is a large jurisdiction like the US or the EU, the premise that nobody is going to sell computers or phones there anymore seems highly implausible.
> You don't "read" a piece of software the same way you don't "read" a song on the radio. Software runs on a computer, and songs play on a radio.
If you want to create a derivative work of a piece of music, having the recording will be all a musician needs, whereas having only object code is going to frustrate a programmer.
> You can't create a derivative work of my nudes on my phone, because I won't give them to you.
But then you also can't (or have no opportunity to) exercise any of the rights copyright imparts. If your stuff never leaves your phone then you can't sue someone for infringing your copyright because they have nothing from which to make an illicit copy or derivative work before the copyright expires.
That doesn't mean you have to be the one to publish it, but without it somehow getting out, there is nothing to enforce. And obviously in the common case copyright is being used for published works -- the date of first publication is even used to determine the copyright term in the common case. For corporations it's 95 years from first publication.
> Copyright is and has only ever been about protecting creators rights. Only patent law is predicated on sharing.
In the US they both come from the same clause in the constitution:
> [Congress shall have power] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
The goal in both cases is the same (promote the Progress), only the thing protected differs (writings vs. discoveries), and in both cases it's for limited times, implying that enriching the public domain is the mandated result.
> You can make someone agree to carry insurance against bankruptcy
If you can find someone to write it, because these aren't a product that is generally available.
> require the payout to go into a trust whose purpose is to continue to support the hardware for the specified period of time, if that's what you want to do.
Nobody would do this, because funding a requirement that wouldn't ever be enforceable is akin to burning money. You can't penalize a company that doesn't exist.
> This can't realistically be the actual requirement.
It absolutely is, and it's why precisely zero phones (even 'open source' phones) have an open baseband.
> So if the source code to your phone firmware leaks on the internet it becomes illegal to sell the phone in these jurisdictions?
No. Regulations require companies to ensure they design their products to operate within regulatory requirements. Leaks, by definition, are not intentional.
> Any laws even resembling that should be repealed anyway.
No, they really shouldn't. There are good reasons that mass market devices are designed not to interfere with other users of the spectrum.
> The relevant jurisdiction is the one where the products are sold.
Are you suggesting that parties other than OEMs are subject to this law too??? Good lord -- do you want the corner gas station to hire engineers to ensure the microcontroller firmware on the phone chargers they sell is properly open sourced? Basically all other product regulatory law affects the company that makes the product, for good reason.
> If you want to create a derivative work of a piece of music, having the recording will be all a musician needs
That very much depends entirely on what they're trying to do.
> But then you also can't (or have no opportunity to) exercise any of the rights copyright imparts.
The rights legally exist regardless, and the reason I used this example is because it is a very solid way to go after people who steal private works.
> And obviously in the common case copyright is being used for published works -- the date of first publication is even used to determine the copyright term in the common case. For corporations it's 95 years from first publication.
And there are other various durations which apply when the work is not published. Publishing is not a requirement.
> In the US they both come from the same clause in the constitution:
Yep, that's the clause that enumerated the power of the federal government to regulate those things. Which the federal government subsequently, as that clause granted them the power to do, regulated them as two entirely separate categories of intellectual property.
> If you can find someone to write it, because these aren't a product that is generally available.
Trade credit insurance etc. are generally available. The general concept is that you want to insure against your counterparty being unable to fulfill their obligations, which is exactly the concern here, and nothing stops you from requiring them to pay for that and then naming a trust as the beneficiary that would use the money to uphold their obligation to continue to support the device, if you really want to do that.
> Nobody would do this, because funding a requirement that wouldn't ever be enforceable is akin to burning money. You can't penalize a company that doesn't exist.
The money comes from the insurance that pays out because they defaulted. The insurance company still exists and is required to pay the claim.
> It absolutely is, and it's why precisely zero phones (even 'open source' phones) have an open baseband.
This doesn't make any sense. Can you cite the specific statute or regulation that requires this?
What secret is even being protected here? Surely the method of operation for baseband modems is not classified information.
> No. Regulations require companies to ensure they design their products to operate within regulatory requirements.
The devices presumably do operate within regulatory requirements as manufactured. It's ridiculous to expect the manufacturer to prevent the customer from modifying the device. If someone modifies the device it's on them. How is the OEM supposed to stop someone from splicing a signal amplifier into the antenna or having a device from a different regulatory domain drop shipped or similar?
> Leaks, by definition, are not intentional.
Once the code is leaked, intentionally or otherwise, you're now intentionally selling a device with publicly available code. Why should the response to that be any different than selling a device for which the code was intentionally published to comply with the laws of another jurisdiction?
> No, they really shouldn't. There are good reasons that mass market devices are designed not to interfere with other users of the spectrum.
They would still be designed to do that. The difference is that you put the obligation for prosecuting users who modify devices to violate those regulations where it belongs, on law enforcement, instead of compromising security, freedom and transparency by trying to put it on device OEMs.
> Are you suggesting that parties other than OEMs are subject to this law too??? Good lord -- do you want the corner gas station to hire engineers to ensure the microcontroller firmware on the phone chargers they sell is properly open sourced? Basically all other product regulatory law affects the company that makes the product, for good reason.
What do you think currently happens if you go to Walmart and buy a product manufactured in China with faulty wiring and it starts a fire? Or a foreign-made wireless access point that exceeds FCC regulatory limits on transmit power out of the box?
> The rights legally exist regardless, and the reason I used this example is because it is a very solid way to go after people who steal private works.
It's basically a hack the courts used because there wasn't a more convenient existing law to go after people who do that but those people are unsympathetic. It's ancillary to the core purpose of copyright laws.
> And there are other various durations which apply when the work is not published. Publishing is not a requirement.
The other durations are longer (e.g. 120 years from creation vs. 95 years from publication), so for for the vast majority of works which are promptly published it's the publication date that causes expiration. The other date exists only to ensure that the work can't be withheld from the public domain indefinitely by not publishing it, which is back to the purpose of copyright being to enrich the public domain.
> Yep, that's the clause that enumerated the power of the federal government to regulate those things. Which the federal government subsequently, as that clause granted them the power to do, regulated them as two entirely separate categories of intellectual property.
The constitution itself implies that they're two different things, but the point is that they have the same ultimate purpose and denying the public the source code frustrates that purpose, so it's entirely reasonable to require it in exchange for the benefits of copyright protection.