license >> header from the MPL, LGPL and GPL on each one. Whenever you make changes to "the file", you update all three copies. If someone wants to >>use the file, he picks which copy to use. If you are, for example, >>Netscape, > > However this is not the case, there are not three files but one.
So you are saying that, in order to license a file more than one way, you need to have two separate source trees? Simon, you must be the only person in the world who has studied this who thinks that way. I can name a whole bundle of dually-licensed projects (OpenOffice, Perl) for which there is a dual license and a single source tree is considered absolutely fine. > Naturally not. AOL is safe because they for the most part are the > primary copyright holder and also have the resources to defend any > action. > Would AOL indemnify me or any other developer, naturally not. Against what? >>There is no way this disjunctive tri-license can have a GPL-ising effect >> on your code if you are using the code under the MPL. You indicate >>this use by following the license conditions. >> > > You cannot identify which licence is in operation because the > existence of the file implies use and the implied use can be any of > the possible licences unless there is some actual real evidence to > show which licence is in force. Yes. If you follow the conditions of all three licences then your use could be under any one of them. The observer simply doesn't know, and to him it makes no difference, given that if you follow all three he can't sue you for license infringement. It's only when you break a condition of all of them that he can sue, because he knows you have no legal defence any more. >>>without of course being able >>>to contribute back. >>> >>Given that developers own the copyright on their modifications and can >>license them any way they choose, how can they be prevented from >>contributing back? > > Because they cannot licence their code under the GPL. Why not? If I'm a commercial software developer and I license a component of my closed-source app under the GPL, this does not force me to open-source the rest of the app. As the copyright holder, I can license it under as many (incompatible, bizarre or perverse) licenses that I like, and do with it exactly what I like. >>Many commercial companies are using, and will continue to use the code >>under these terms. > > How can they if their contributions are now also licenced under the > GPL? You see copyright makes no difference, it doesn't matter that > the original author can do as they wish its others who gain rights in > this. Making the GPL compulsory means that any GPL licensee of the > same code can assume that any file which is identical, has the same > licence language, etc, is released under the same conditions for all > circumstances, there is nothing to gainsay that. Such a licensee > could then reach into the original author's work and claim that other > code was also affected by the GPL licence because of the use. This is simply not true. You cannot enforce a copyright holder's license conditions back on the copyright holder. This is the _point_ of being the copyright holder. If it were possible to do this, Aladdin would have to GPL the most modern version of Ghostscript because it shares code with the older GPLed version. Gerv
