[pp.int.general] Escrow etc.

[Richard Stallman]

http://redhog.org/Blog/Stallmans_critique_and_compulsory_copies.html
discusses my source code escrow proposal in the context of assuming
that copyright continues to last for 75 years (or life plus 50 years)
as in the Bern convention.

If copyright lasts that long, I don't think there is even an issue.
If I die tomorrow, the copyright on GNU Emacs (an old version before
others' contribuiions) would expire in 2059.  So what?  I doubt that
source code 75 years old will be of much interest in the future.

I raised the issue in the context of the Swedish Pirate Party program,
which includes reduction of the general copyright term to 5 years.
That reduction is what makes the issue significant.  Using GPL-covered
software only 5 years old in proprietary software would be a
significant advantage for proprietary software, if free software could
use proprietary source code that is 5 years old.