Hi Tom and Linus and all, On Fri, 2007-11-02 at 03:53 -0400, Tom Morris wrote:
> ArgoUML could switch to the GPL v2 now, and announce that it will consider > requests for a different license. This would allow any serious large > companies to approach ArgoUML to do extensions. That doesn't work. The only way have clear provenance for the source code is to get *all* contributors to contractually agree to the new license if its terms conflict with the old license. From a practical point of view that means that you need to a) draft contributor's agreement that names the multiple license and b) get each contributor to sign it before adding their contributions to the source pool. Going back and doing this after the fact is a nightmare. Going from BSD to anything else is a special case because the starting license is so permissive. If getting explicit consent of all the contributors to ArgoUML is an absolute necessity, then that is very serious issue. I suggest that Linus and others in the ArgoUML project ask for legal counsel on this issue from the Software Freedom Law Center, thru the Software Conservancy. IMHO, the ArgoUML project needs a professional legal opinion on this issue of acquiring "clear provenance". I hope there is a creative legal solution to this problem that relieves the ArgoUML project of what appears to be a monumental task. Until we know what our options are on this issue Tom has raised, it is pointless to expend our energies on this list debating the pros and cons of various open source licenses. cheers, roy
