Should OS makers, like Microsoft, be legally required to provide 15 years of security updates?

  • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    “owner” is typically the maintainer,

    Nope, AFAIK that is not legally applicable, that is very clear with licenses like MIT BSD etc, and for GPL in all versions it’s very explicitly stated in the license.
    You can also release as simply public domain, which very obviously means nobody owns as it is owned by everybody.
    Generally if you give something away for free, you can’t be claimed to be the owner.
    I have no idea where that idea should come from, some typical anti EU alarmists maybe? And I bet there is zero legal precedent for that. And I seriously doubt any lawyer would support your claim.

    If however you choose a license where the creator keeps ownership it may be different, but then it’s not FOSS.