pruning "dead" licenses

[Russell Nelson]

I got to thinking the other day that we really ought to be pruning
"dead" licenses from the list.  The principle seems correct, since the
underlying intellectual property right expires as well: copyright
after a gazillion years[1], patents after twenty years, and trademarks
after you stop defending them.

A "dead" license is one which is no longer used for any projects.

That's obviously a tough criterion to meet, since we would have to
prove a negative.  A related positive criteria is to ask the person
who (or entity which) submitted the license if they are still using
it, and if they know of anyone else using it.

Another definition of a "dead" license is one which is not being used
by any projects which advertise OSI Certification.  If none of the
licensed projects need OSI Certification, (and we can infer this by
their failure to advertise OSI Certification), then why should we keep
the license's approval?

Comments?

[1] In recent practise, copyrights don't expire even though the law
says that they do.  The principle of copyright expiration still holds,
though.

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