Good questions... On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 9:46 AM, Dean Horak <[email protected]> wrote: > How does a project transition from GPLv3 to a different license, when all the > existing code has already been released as GPLv3. I assume that the GPLv3 > license will remain in effect for all existing code, and only new code > specifically contributed by Numenta specifically identified as AGPL will be > affected by this.
Correct. The NuPIC (and related) code that currently exists on Github, and all the history of that code, is GPLv3. There is nothing we can do about that, it will always be GPLv3. When we change the license to AGPLv3, from that point forward, the repository and all future developments in the repo will be AGPLv3. So there will be a line drawn in time at the commit SHA when we make the license change. > But what about community contributed code? Surely Numenta cannot force the > community to adopt AGPLv3 should they choose not to since Numenta is > technically only a contributor (albeit the prime contributor) as well and not > the "owner" of the codebase. Actually, Numenta is the sole copyright owner of the NuPIC codebase, and the copyright owner has control over the license of the code. This means that Numenta, as the copyright owner, has the legal right to change the license without input from any contributors, because all contributors signed our Contributor License Agreement [1] that signs over all their copyright of their contributions to Numenta. > Do contributors have the option of choosing AGPLv3 or GPLv3? I suppose a > vote from the community to adopt AGPLv3 for all future code could be enforced > by the committers - only allowing AGPLv3 code into the codebase, but this > seemingly could lead to a fork of the code, which is probably not a desirable > outcome at this point. No, contributors will not get a choice in the matter. If this codebase were copyright many authors, a vote would be necessary to change the license. But because Numenta is the sole copyright owner, a vote is unnecessary. We do, however, care what our contributors think about licenses, and we certainly to not make such changes wantonly. > Again, I do not expect that this will have any real impact on me, but in the > spirit of clarity and transparency, I think response to these types of > questions should be considered. I am happy to answer any more questions. [1] http://numenta.org/licenses/cl --------- Matt Taylor OS Community Flag-Bearer Numenta
