Christian Seberino wrote:
If you release code under a GPL, LGPL or MIT license and then decide to
revoke the license, we are hamstrung from using your *future* improvements
but we can still grok and evolve the *previous* code you released before
your change of heart.
You can continue to use the code. It's not clear you can continue to
distribute the code.
The GPL explicitly says it can be revoked if you breach the terms. So,
the EFF agrees that they can revoke your license.
The question is whether the GPL is a license or a contract.
If it is just a license, then it falls under copyright law and the
copyright holder can revoke your license to *old or new* code at any
point he chooses.
This means that you cannot distribute that code any further from that
point forward. You could possibly generate patches against the code
base, but you could not give anybody the actual code base against which
to apply those patches if they don't already have it.
If it is a contract, then it falls under copyright law and the license
cannot be revoked except for breach of contract.
In the cphack case, it seems like the judge thought the license fell
under copyright law. In the Wallace case, it seems like the judge was
more inclined to contract law.
As was pointed out, this distinction is actually a peculiar quirk to the
laws of the United States. Germany, for instance, has no distinction
and the GPL falls under contract law.
-a
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