If I'm buying a software license from a company, I am not lending the company anything, by any stretch of the imagination. You can view it as a type of limited sale, or you can view it as me renting something from the company. But in either case, they don't have any traditional legal obligations to me in case of bankruptcy.
And my point was not that the current situation is fine and dandy. It was that a law that says "sell licenses for restricted purposes today, but if you want to stop selling these 10 years from now, you'll have to do X and Y at that time" can't work - the company will find some way to discharge that obligation through sales and bankruptcy.
What would work would be an obligation at the time of sale - say, you could sell software licenses with conditional functionality, but only if you provide proof that you have an archived version stored with a third party that would be released to all customers in case of your bankruptcy. Since the cost would have already been paid, there would be no way to discharge this obligation during bankruptcy or dissolution or other similar mechanisms.
And my point was not that the current situation is fine and dandy. It was that a law that says "sell licenses for restricted purposes today, but if you want to stop selling these 10 years from now, you'll have to do X and Y at that time" can't work - the company will find some way to discharge that obligation through sales and bankruptcy.
What would work would be an obligation at the time of sale - say, you could sell software licenses with conditional functionality, but only if you provide proof that you have an archived version stored with a third party that would be released to all customers in case of your bankruptcy. Since the cost would have already been paid, there would be no way to discharge this obligation during bankruptcy or dissolution or other similar mechanisms.