You'd probably need to put the source code/keys in escrow. With legally mandated escrow, you can go after the owners/executives if they're not compliant.
Businesses are more than some source code. Even if you forced a company to release source code, you’d need to have access to the cloud domains and be able to have someone setup and operate servers at those addresses for everyone to use.
Forcing companies to forfeit their IP to public domain is an idea that appeals to tech people who imagine they’re going to reboot the entire service themselves, but it wouldn’t actually solve these problems in real life business cases.
It’s also effectively an appropriation of the company’s IP. Any country that introduced legislation that mandated companies run products for 7 years or completely forfeit all of the IP would immediately see development and production of that product move to other countries without such laws.
These ideas get floated on Hacker News but they’re completely unrealistic.
> you can go after the owners/executives if they're not compliant.
Holding startup founders personally liable if their product or business fails before 7 years and their business can’t be open sourced would create a very bad business environment, to say the least.
This also ignores the real problem that parts of source code are frequently licensed, not owned. Companies can’t just open source everything because they’re often using some licensed software or libraries.
This entire plan would make it effectively illegal for companies to develop or release a product which contains code they licensed from another party.
The number of issues with these kinds of ideas are numerous. It’s the domain of Internet fantasy, not actual policy.
> This also ignores the real problem that parts of source code are frequently licensed, not owned. Companies can’t just open source everything because they’re often using some licensed software or libraries.
Regulation can require that sublicenses extend to private individuals for repair of devices or services that are EOL. It could even limit the versions covered and commercial use.
Regardless, perfect doesn't need to be the enemy of the good. As it is consumers are increasingly powerless and landfills are overflowing.
What you’re suggesting is a ban on licensing closed source software.
Any country that did something like this would see every hardware company immediately relocate to a different country that didn’t have such weird laws.
Regulation like this is how you completely crush a country’s tech industry.
> landfills are overflowing
Tech waste is a tiny fraction of all garbage. People throw out more volumes of household trash in a week than they might discard tech devices in many years.
You have very quickly glossed over on why would the tech people be unable to reboot the entire service, and immediately jumped to hand-waving as "stealing the IP". The company is bankrupt, it does not need the IP. And the customers still need their product that you promised to support. And if you have not promised, you should be forced to promise, otherwise what's the point? It's like selling air that can escape at any time. Nope. I'll steer away from those businesses like I always have, and like most sensible people do.
> Holding startup founders personally liable if their product or business fails before 7 years and their business can’t be open sourced would create a very bad business environment, to say the least.
Maybe. That's a conjecture; a hypothesis at best. At the same time it might introduce pressure to have the licensing craziness tamed and streamlined. It's way too complex and hinders innovation, as you half-alluded to.
> The company is bankrupt, it does not need the IP
I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how bankruptcy works if you don’t think the IP is important in bankruptcy.
> Maybe. That's a conjecture; a hypothesis at best.
It’s not conjecture, it’s simple fact.
If you introduce laws making founders personally liable if their product fails within 7 years, you create a hostile environment for startups. It’s very simple.
The legal aspect is not interesting to me. I am more interested in "What are you going to do with that IP?".
Citing legalese is not relevant here, we all know how the situation came to its current state, the real interesting question is how can things improve.
Right, this is why I’m trying to tell you that you don’t understand how bankruptcy works with tech companies. The IP is an asset which is sold off to recoup money which goes toward the company’s debtors.
If you introduce a law like this, you effectively remove that IP from the company’s assets. Tech companies are valued largely by their IP.
No sane investor or startup will headquarter themselves in a country that has a law forcing their IP into public domain.
Investors won’t invest in and banks won’t loan companies to develop tech IP if there’s a law on the books that says they can’t sell that IP.
> The legal aspect is not interesting to me.
I can see that much. :)
The legal aspect is all important. Waving it away is ignoring the entire issue.
> the real interesting question is how can things improve.
The proposals so far would do nothing other than discourage development of new products in that country. Hardly an improvement.
No founder is going to pay too much attention to what happens if they go bankrupt. They will be focused more on succeeding. Anyone that takes this into account probably deserves to go bankrupt
Unproductive discussion, I see. Seems like you are a protector of the status quo. To me it's blindingly obvious things are stuck and should be shaken a bit.
This category of consequence would solve so many problems. Think of how much everyone's lives would be improved if stealing wages was a crime with actual repercussions.
Threatening to jail startup founders if they can’t open source the entire code for their product if it fails is one of the more out of touch ideas I’ve seen on Hacker News lately.
Many products are developed with software licensed from vendors, which cannot be open sourced by the startup. They don’t even own the IP, just a license to use it.
Maybe on bankruptcy, any source code or data should not be part of the sale of the company to potential buyers, but first examined to see if it should be owned by the customers instead. Also relevant to 23andMe.
Many hardware products are built with licensed code. It cannot be released because the company doesn’t own all of it.
There’s also more to a product than just some source code. You’d need the cloud domains, the private keys and certificates, and other bits. Releasing many of these to the public domain wouldn’t solve anything because you’d need someone to operate the cloud servers at the known address and trust with the private keys and certificates
All of this quickly begins to look a lot like requiring someone to operate the business again, which is obviously a silly thing to require in bankruptcy proceedings.
Forcing companies to release their IP if they go bankrupt is equally silly, because it renders the value of the company’s IP as $0 before anyone can be paid out.
The only thing this would incentivize is for companies to either relocate to countries with sane laws, or to shut off the servers and avoid bankruptcies by keeping the company technically alive but doing nothing other than staying as a registered business. It would act as a holding company to keep the IP in case someone wanted to buy it.
