[pp.int.general] cultural flatrate: PP position?

[Richard Stallman]

    > If you mean proprietary programs whose source is secret, how would
    > you achieve that?  The only way to make them free is to get the source
    > code published.

    Or allow reverse engineering.

Reverse engineering would clearly be allowed, if these binaries are in
the public domain, but it is so difficult that it is not a solution.

There are many binary firmware packages that we need to reverse
engineer now, so as to learn hardware information with which to
develop free software replacements.  These programs are fairly small,
at most thousands of lines, and yet we cannot even find the people to
do that.  Do you believe that people will disassemble programs that
are hundreds of thousands of lines?  I don't think so.  Feel free to
organize an effort people to prove me wrong, but until you succeed, I
can't consider this a solution.

However, it looks like we agree in supporting Valentin's solution:
making copyright last somewhat longer if certain specified freedoms
are granted by license to the users can solve the problem.  If the
details are set up right (10-year copyright on copylefted free
software), this is a solution I can endorse.