Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 23:28:51 -0600 From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> To: David Kelly <dkelly@hiwaay.net>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Sun's web site Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20000817232506.04d0d100@localhost> In-Reply-To: <200008172319.SAA84418@nospam.hiwaay.net> References: <Message from "Thomas M. Sommers" <tms2@mail.ptd.net> <399C29DF.D78B117@mail.ptd.net>
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At 05:19 PM 8/17/2000, David Kelly wrote: >Notice under GPL you do not give up the copyright on the software. You >still own it and control it. The same is true under the BSD license. >Presumably even the mods others (anonymous >contributors who don't go to lengths to claim their own copyright on the >revisions) put into it. What I'm saying is the copyright holder is still >free at a later date to jump back in with a non-GPL version including >developments during its GPL phase. But no one will buy it. What's more, that version must be free of any additions which were contributed by third parties under the GPL. Because this is difficult to do, the GPL in effect wrests control away from the copyright holder. The horse is out of the barn for good, and the copyright holder cannot profit from licensing the software. >YMMV, depends on how good your >lawyers and public relations people are. > >/usr/src/gnu/COPYING plainly states if you wish to use GPL'ed code in a >non-GPL'ed product to contact the copyright holder and ask permission. Knowing full well that you're likely not to be able to find the contributors and/or that at least some of them will almost certainly refuse due to GPL zealotry. What's more, because individuals' contributions are not clearly delineated, it is impossible to remove these persons' code. >Clearly the copyright holder is not bound by the terms of GPL. Has this >not happened a number of times already with Linux-derived device drivers >in FreeBSD? The GPL still sabotages any effort to use the code commercially. That is its intended purpose, and it does it quite well. --Brett To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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