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Come now, that's not good for anyone. The GPL/BSD/Apache licenses are all fairly useless if they aren't backed up by copyright law.


I don't see a whole lot of difference between the BSD and Apache licenses and just putting software in the public domain. And maybe also tacking on a SHOUTY ALL-UPPERCASE DISCLAIMER OF LIABILITY so you don't get sued for not having a shouty all-uppercase disclaimer of liability.

The GPL does have some extra requirements, in the form of source code sharing requirements for derivative works, but judging by how many people use more permissive open-source licenses, the difference here seems to be pretty slight in practice.


Reverse engineering would be a lot less of a pain without the clean room requirement, so I'm not worried about that.

Anyway it's a pony suggestion, not a serious proposal for a law. What I'd actually like to see is reduction of copyright/patent terms, abolition of certain patent types, expansion of fair use boundaries, and explicit rules for determining fair use without going to court.


I for one would be willing to part with all of those, in exchange for a world without copyright.




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