At 2004-07-26 00:09:38 +0530, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > Yet, can the original author choose to un-gpl a software?
That depends on what you mean by "un-GPL". The copyright holders in a work may choose to offer the work under any terms they choose, and at any time. Thus, the sole author of a program can always offer the code under a different license, or under multiple licenses, or whatever they want. In the specific case of code that has been released under the GPL, the author can choose to offer offer future versions under another license either instead of, or in addition to, the GPL, but as I understand it, the GPL precludes retroactively re-licensing versions of the code that have already been released under it. (This seems to be the big problem that people have with qmail's license.) > what happens to the code contributed by other developers who wrote for > what to them appeared to be a GPL-ed software then? Any significant contributors to the work hold copyright to portions of the work as a whole. Thus, they get to decide the terms of the license under which their portions are released. In such a case, a work may be relicensed only if all of the copyright holders agree to the change. Alternatively, the work may be relicensed without those portions whose copyright holders have not agreed to the change. (Down which road lies the land of flamewars and madness.) -- ams _______________________________________________ ilugd mailinglist -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
