Alexander Terekhov wrote:
http://en.allexperts.com/e/p/pu/public_domain.htm (As a general rule, licenses are revocable, and the GPL does not
> purport to be perpetual.)
In fact, GPLv3 <http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl.html> does purport to be perpetual and irrevocable: All rights granted under this License are granted for the term of copyright on the Program, and are irrevocable provided the stated conditions are met. GPLv2 did not contain any specification of term. Courts have found (e.g., <http://altlaw.org/v1/cases/1101734>) that for licenses where terms have not been specified, duration is not controlled by section 203. Instead, state law is used to determine what duration should be, and some states allow such indeterminate licenses to be revoked immediately. Anyway, there's very little precedent for these sorts of things, so if it does come up, courts are going to have to blaze their way through relatively unexplored territory. The Butthole Surfers court above said in 1999: Despite the fact that ยง 203 was enacted over 20 years ago as part of the Copyright Act of 1976, there is very limited case law on its interpretation. The only case from a court of appeals is from the Ninth Circuit, Rano v. Sipa Press, 987 F.2d 580 (1993). _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss