on 8/3/2000 5:33 PM, "christopher baus" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> To restate my question, does anyone know what the legalities are for
> changing the license on released GPL code?
> Is this at the discretion of
> the those how hold the copyright?
yes.
> Do all copyright holders have to
> agree?
yes.
> Linus couldn't come out tomorrow and decide to change the kernel
> license to BSD if he wanted to right. Isn't that the point of GPL?
there are a lot of points to the GPL (which is another problem with it...it
is confusing as hell and no one bothers to actually read it...which is just
plain stupid because they don't know what they are getting into). the point
of GPL that you are probably thinking of is really to force people to make
their changes open. this is a point that i can give you a thousand reasons
why it really doesn't apply anymore to the majority of the OSS projects.
for example, Justin can do whatever he wants to WM because he makes you sign
the copyright over to him for any code contributions you make. just because
it is GPL really means nothing to him because he still owns the copyright on
all of the code. he can do whatever he wants with it, but you can't.
in the case of Turbine (and the ASF), you assign the copyright to the ASF.
personally, i'm more interested in giving my copyright to a non-profit
organization (the ASF) than i am to an individual who I really don't trust.
I know that the ASF will never change the license in such a way that I won't
like it because the basis of the ASF mandates that the code be available
without restrictions on the distribution of the code. i don't know that
about Justin.
-jon
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