What does Microsoft's original Windows copyright cover and what's likely to happen when it runs out?

Question

Yeah, yeah, I know it will be some time before it happens, but I'm still curious.

Will anyone be able to anything with the code they want?
Will they be able to redistribute it legally?
What kind of features/components do you think they should add and/or take out?
What's the likelihood that someone will come up with a more stable and secure OS based on the Windows platform?

Feel free to add anything related to this in your answer that I didn't specifically ask.

Answer 1

Once it passes into the public domain then people can do anything they want with it. Of course, the latest copyright extension set copyright time to be equal to 90 years after the death of the creator, so it will be well over 100 years before Windows becomes public domain. By that point there won't be any hardware that will run it and it will be of interest only for history students and those interested in primitive early computing.

Answer 2

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