Gabriel Sechan wrote:
No, they can't. *If* they own every copyright in there, they could
decide to not make the next version of it GPL. They can't revoke the
license on existing copies or versions. And they can only do that
much if they never accepted any user revision, removed/rewrote all
user revisions, or were assigned copyright for all user revisions.
Folks,
At best, it's murky. At worst, you're wrong.
This stuff came up in the cphack case, but cphack was not under the GPL
so didn't get tested.
In addition, that was only about distribution. Nobody talked about the
issue of usage. You *might* still be able to use the software, but you
will be unable to redistribute it further.
http://advogato.org/article/606.html
"A quick scan through the Free Software licenses I have immediately on
hand showed one thing in common: none say the rights are waived
perpetually or irrevocably. On the face of it, it seems, I could release
a program under the GPL, and then announce five years later that it and
all derived works are under my private control again.
I wrote to Eben Moglen (FSF counsel) asking about this, but he didn't
reply. I wrote to Fred von Lohmann of the EFF, and he said that the
question is a difficult one, and that it "actually came up in the cphack
case, but the issue was never resolved". "
http://old.lwn.net/2000/0330/
"The second challenge, though, is more disturbing. In the same article,
Eugene Volokh, a law professor at UCLA, indicated that he felt the GPL
could be challenged because no money changed hands. "'Nonexclusive
licenses given for free are generally revocable, even if they purport to
be irrevocable,' Volokh said. 'Even if the GPL license in cphack is
treated as signed and is covered by 205(e), it might still be revocable
by Mattel as the new owners of the cphack copyright.'"
This challenge would be based on the idea that, if no consideration
changes hands, then there is no contract between the author and the
person using the software, just a free gift which is therefore revokable."
The GPL *does not* explicitly prevent the revocation; the assignment of
copyright to the EFF *does* by way of the EFF charter.
Just because you wish something to be true does not make it so.
-a
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