There are good FAQs on www.gnu.org regarding the GPL and if I remember
right, they address this issue. This may be off-topic to the list, so I
don't want to get in-depth, but to make one thing clear: if they have
written all the code themselves and have not incorporated third-party
gpl code they can always change the license for future versions. The
mentioned clause of the GPL does in fact not contradict this, and even
if it did, the clause would be void (or non-effective) in almost all
countries with a modern copyright law.
Well, not so sure... Copyright is quite an US centric concept, as opposed to european "authors right".
An interesting study by Mélanie Clément-Fontaine, can be found at http://crao.net/gpl/gpl-Contents.html regarding the compatibility of the GPL and the french laws (in french...)
The conclusion is that the GPL, including 'copyleft', is valid from a lawyer point of view, at least in France.
Sorry for the quote in french, but I'm unable to translate.
"Il nous semble possible au terme de cette étude, d'affirmer que la licence publique générale GNU organise un mode d'exploitation de logiciel fiable au regard du droit des obligations et du droit d'auteur, et est conforme à sa finalité.
En effet, bien qu'elle implique le mouvement en permettant notamment, la modification de son objet (le logiciel), une collaboration d'auteurs sans contrainte d'espace-temps, l'amélioration de ses dispositions, elle ne contrevient pas aux règles du droit des obligations et des contrats qui tendent à assurer la prévisibilité des conventions.
Elle introduit une nouvelle logique du droit d'auteur, ce que Richard M. Stallman traduit par "gauche d'auteur" (copyleft) : alors que le droit d'auteur a été créé pour permettre la réservation de l'oeuvre, la GPL réussit de manière efficace, en utilisant les règles du droit d'auteur, à inverser cette logique. En effet, selon la gauche d'auteur, le titulaire des droits sur l'oeuvre contrôle le moment de sa divulgation (a. L121-2 CPI), sa paternité (a. L121-1 CPI), son respect (a. L121-7 CPI), sa reproduction et sa représentation (a. L122-6 CPI) non pour s'assurer sa réservation mais, en vue de la rendre libre. Ainsi, la licence permet d'atteindre l'objectif de ses auteurs : rendre le logiciel libre en créant un fonds commun auquel chacun peut ajouter, mais duquel personne ne peut retrancher."
There are quite some companies
that license their GPL-code under different licenses, too.
-Jost.
Thomas Nichols wrote:
>
> At 23:53 27/09/2001 -0700, Avi Cherry wrote:
> >>Yes, the site says so. But this is interesting! Once GPLed code cannot be
> >>made non-GPL later on even by the original author.
> >
> >Depends how you look at it. They can't prevent earlier versions from
> >being re-distributed according to the GPL, but they can re-licence the
> >code any way they want for newer versions, preventing IT from being
> >redistributed. The original author still owns the code, and can licence
> >it any way they want, as many different ways as they want.
>
> Hmmm, I'm not sure it _does_ depend how you look at it. From the GPL
> included (file "COPYING") with the MindTerm v1.0 code, section 2:
>
> b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
> whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
> part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
> parties under the terms of this License.
>
> So unless MindTerm v2 is a complete rewrite (which it may be), they'll be
> in breach of the GPL. Which is probably not a good idea.
>
> - Thomas.
>
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