Re: [libreplanet-discuss] Buying the rights to proprietary programs to free them

[Koz Ross]

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On Fri, 5 Feb 2016 11:25:37 +0100
Fabio Pesari <fabiop@gnu.org> wrote:

> We hear about companies like Facebook and Google buying out startups
> all the time and I thought, why don't we use crowdfunding to buy the
> rights to proprietary programs ourselves and release their code under
> the GPL? (Of course, we have to be sure all their dependencies are
> also free).
> 
> New programs might be too expensive but we might be able to buy the
> rights to some older programs, as well as some indie games (of course,
> we'd release the assets under the CC BY-SA in that case).
> 
> Can this be done? I know it would require huge sums of money but I
> think plenty of people would donate to free a program like Renoise or
> a game like Mount & Blade: Warband or Dwarf Fortress.
> 
> 

I believe that *theoretically* this is possible - assuming whoever it
is is willing to sell under those conditions. It'd certainly be
something I'd support - financially if needs be - especially if we're
also releasing the assets behind the software in question. There are
quite a few older games that I wish were free, and it's possible that
this approach could actually get us a free equivalent much more
efficiently than a reimplementation.

- -- 
Koz Ross <koz.ross@retro-freedom.nz>
www.retro-freedom.nz
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