John Plocher <[email protected]> wrote:

> Changing a license is amazingly simple in theory, yet complex enough
> in practice to be nearly impossible:
>
> The owners of the current copyright simply need to decide to relicense
> or dual license their code under a new license.
>
> Unfortunately, the tens of thousands of people who have contributed to
> GNOME over the last decade or so probably aren't of the same mind as
> to whether or not they wish to change, much less on which license they
> wish to change to.  And, unless they *ALL* agree to the same details,
> it can't be changed.

In the European Copyright law as well as in the US Copyright law, you need
to have a decsion that get's a majority of the contribution (not from lines
but from Copyright relevant creation) and all contributors with more than
aprox. 5% contributions need to vote for the change.

I cannot speak for GNOME, but for e.g. the Linux kernel, you would need
much less than 50 pro votes.

Jörg

-- 
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