Lessig's "Creative Commons" @ The FAA

tramm writes "The FAA, working with the EAA have put together a proposal to release old type certificates and blueprints once the copyright holders no longer exist. Sort of like Abandonware for airplanes. This very closely resembles Lawrence Lessig's idea of a creative commons, into which source code would be escrowed. Once the copyright expired or became abandonded, the sources would be released. "This set of legal guidelines will help the FAA develop a set of procedures to legally release what had previously been unnecessarily protected as proprietary data.". Hopefully the Copyright office will take note of the success here, as well as the Supreme Court's hearing of Eldred v Reno."

Comments

What about Windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

So... does this mean that Windows source code will be available to the general public by, say, January 2542?

Re:Start with NASA

[Waffle Iron]

The patents on the J5 (I think, it's been a long time - the engine used in the second and third stages of the Saturn V anyways) expired in the late 70's so those engine designs are fully in the public domain.

That's right, if you've been craving more power for your vehicle, you can now strap a genuine moon rocket motor to it with no restrictions or license fees.

However, being a practical-minded guy, I'd use the Saturn-V's first stage F5 instead. It's a whole lot more powerful, and it uses kerosene so you won't have to wait around for the "hydrogen economy" to refuel it.

Bring your credit card along, though, because it burns something like 3 tons of fuel per second.