<div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 10:06 PM, Richard M Stallman <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:rms@gnu.org">rms@gnu.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="Ih2E3d">My proposal to the Pirate Party is to require proprietary software<br></div>
source code to be put in escrow when the binaries are released. The<br>
escrowed source code would then be released in the public domain after<br>
5 years. Rather than making free software an official exception to<br>
the 5-year copyright rule, we would eliminate the proprietary<br>
software's unofficial exception. Either way, the result is fair. If<br>
the state ensures that no laws or contracts can block the free use of<br>
that public domain code once available, the result will be a growing<br>
free software commons.</blockquote><div><br></div><div>My suggestion is to look at this as a consumer rights issue. Maybe it could be argued that a consumer would have the right get the source code of software that was bought (whith some specification of bought...) when the compiright term expires.</div>
<div><br></div><div>or</div><div><br></div><div>Software will recieve copyright protection for a term of five years, if and only if, a designated government agency recieves the source code to the software to be published at the date of term expirery.</div>
<div><br></div><div>BR,</div><div>John</div></div>