Benjamin Scott said:
>On Wed, 30 May 2001, Ken Ambrose wrote:
>> Furthermore, this isn't something we Linux folk are immune to; people
have
>> changed their licenses before, though usually not in as ugly a fashion.
>
> This occurred to me, too. And raised a couple of specific questions for me.
>
>I am not a lawyer, and I realize most (possibly all) people on the list
are
>not, but perhaps others can comment in a non-binding fashion.
>
> First, if someone donates code to the Linux kernel (e.g., they send a long
>patch to the LKML [1]), do they implicitly grant license for that work
under
>the GPL [2]?
It's been assumed so. Of course, patches are normally derived works, and
so fall under the GPL (the "viral" nature).
>
> Second, does the GPL protect against license revocation? A quick re-reading
>of it seemed to indicate to me that this was not specified. If I release
>SuperWidget under the GPL, what is to stop me from later saying I revoke
my
>license and all your rights to use/modify/redistribute the code?
You can revoke the license on the new version, but not on the existing
code (the offer is outstanding, unless you recall ALL copies of the code,
including redistributed stuff). Of course, you can also dual-license.
And, if many people are involved (like the Linux kernel), you can only
stop licensing your part, unless you can get everyone to agree (highly
unlikely, since there's over 350 people in the credits file).
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