> The copyright owner can change the license at any point in time. He can. But that change is not retrospective (or retroactive if you're on that side of the Atlantic). He *cannot* remove the rights of someone who is using his code under a licence he has previously granted so long as the user remains in compliance.
> If > you sue a company for violating the GPL, I can grant them permission > to use my software with another license, and you can't do anything > about it. That is true, unless you have transferred copyright ownership. But so what? As copyright owner, you're allowed to dual-licence your own code[1], and that has nothing whatsoever to do with the GPL. > The license is a contract between the licensor (me, the > developer), and the licensee (the software user, the company), the end > user has absolutely nothing to say in the matter. This is completely untrue. the end-user *must* receive a copy of the GPL (that's a condition of compliance) and is free to accept or reject that licence as he sees fit. If you, as copyright owner, decide to dual-licence your code under a commercial licence as well as the GPL, your commercial customers may reditribute in a way that is no longer compliant with the GLP - but so what? It's nothing to do with the GPL. > If the company is violating the GPL, the user wouldn't even see the > license anywhere, not in an EULA, nowhere. No, but then the violator would not be licenced to redistribute. This is simple copyright infringement, and is no different from any other sort of copyright illegality. Luckily, as a GPL author, you get various organisations who will help you prosecute the violator to ensure that unlawful behaviour stops. How cool is that? If an entity is prepared to ignore copyright legislation, no amount of messing about with the words of the licence will make a blind bit of difference. Vic. [1] I've been emphatic about dual-licencing being in relation to your own code; if your code actually turns out to be a derivative of some GPL code, you *don't* get the right to dual-licence it. _______________________________________________ busybox mailing list [email protected] http://lists.busybox.net/mailman/listinfo/busybox
