On 15-Oct-2007, Albert Dengg wrote: > On Mon, Oct 15, 2007 at 12:15:48AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote: > > If it's 100% yours, who could force you to fulfil the obligations? > > the license gives rights to your customer that can be fought for in > court
The license is not a contract. The recipient of the work has certain freedoms, but has *no* power over the copyright holder. The copyright holder gives a unilateral grant of license to the recipient under certain conditions; if those conditions are not fulfilled, the recipient loses their license and may be sued. The copyright holder is *not* bound by any conditions of the license. > (this has already happend for the gpl)... The only "fighting in court" over the GPL has been suing those who *received* license from others who held copyright in the work. The copyright license, GPL or any other, gives no one the power to sue the copyright holder over their own work. > and as the customer has gotten your software under the gpl from you > you are obliged to fullfill its terms Only if you received the work in turn from someone else under that license. This is not the case for the copyright holder; the law guarantees *all* copyright freedoms unconditionally to the copyright holder, regardless of what license they have granted to others. > lets put it that way: your recieve a binary of some sort acompanied > with a licence statement that this software is licenced under the > gpl and so on (we now the text) and maybe a similar note in the > about box. Is the binary received from a party who holds copyright in the entire work? > the licence clearly grants the right to ask for the source code (to > put it simple) and also grants you the rights that we all now. The only party who would be bound by such terms is someone whose freedom to redistribute comes from the GPL. The copyright holder in the work has that freedom automatically, without having to fulfil any conditions. > so why should the original author not be forced to hold to that > license Because he does not require any license beyond what is already granted under copyright law. > he after all granted them. Yes, and copyright law vests that power in the copyright holder alone. The copyright holder may then grant any of those freedoms, under any terms they like, to other parties. This does not impact the copyright holder's continued right to exercise all those freedoms in the work. In summary: The copyright holder always has the rights granted under copyright law. They can grant those rights to others under specific terms, but the copyright holder is not themselves bound by those terms. -- \ "It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to | `\ persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." | _o__) —Carl Sagan | Ben Finney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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