Ok folks, here is a potential answer to the issue of "abandonware" .<br>Possibly even a poison pill to the "buy a project to bury it" megacorp game too.<br><br>I freely admit to not being the most polished proponent for a concept, but sincerity counts too I hope.
<br><br>Le me raise an initial question. <br>Can you think of an IP work that was rendered "dead" to us by abandonment of some sort?<br><br><br><br>The kernel of this concept is to keep code from being buried by abandonment either intentional or otherwise.
<br><br>It was repeated many times in earlier discussions on our list that a creator/author/coder has certain rights to their work<br>.Author's rights are assignable, even possibly with event clauses according to some precedents in EULA law .
<br>That last one in my first application being that if one clause is held invalid all others NOT so invalided remain in force.<br><br>SO, as some of us are coders and authors or other "content creators" what of a concept where:
<br> <br>If we assign rights to one of our works to external parties they have to "use it or lose it"so to speak.<br>Publish us or give our rights back! Have our works in use and circulation or we get them back
<br>Or at our option set them free as opposed to letting them be buried alive. <br><br>This for example would not have stopped MS from buying Hotmail, but potentially COULD have returned the original; CODE of the project to the FOSS community! Same with some of the projects that were under earlier discussion. A megacorp CAN still decide to wantonly abandon a project, but the CODE needs a way of not being denied "life"
<br><br>Possibly a tagline conveying a "release date" for a work" addendum to CC type contracts?<br><br>EX: The work that is known as "FooBlank" will be released on 30 Feb 2008.<br><br>Constructive comments folks?
<br><br>"The code we create deserves a chance to be obtainable"<br><br>"