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Date:      Mon, 2 Jul 2001 17:24:48 +0200
From:      Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in>
To:        j mckitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org>
Cc:        Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr>, Dirk Myers <dirkm@teleport.com>, freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: BSD, .Net comments - any reponse to this reasoning?
Message-ID:  <20010702172448.I4896@lpt.ens.fr>
In-Reply-To: <20010702161055.A18543@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>; from jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org on Mon, Jul 02, 2001 at 04:10:55PM %2B0100
References:  <20010630174743.A85268@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> <20010630173455.T344@teleport.com> <20010701032900.A93049@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> <20010701132353.W344@teleport.com> <20010702152649.A18127@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> <20010702180222.A2667@hades.hell.gr> <20010702161055.A18543@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org>

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j mckitrick said on Jul  2, 2001 at 16:10:55:
> 
> Well, that's a big piece of the puzzle, for me anyway.  If the GPL can be
> removed by the copyright owner, maybe it's not so evil after all.

It cannot be "removed" by the copyright owner, but the copyright owner
can dual-license it, or release an enhanced version under a different
license.  

Examples: Troll Tech is currently dual-licensing Qt.  Peter Deutsch
has for many years released new versions of Ghostscript under a
commercial license and a restrictive "free beer" license, and the
license gets changed to GPL after 1 year.  (He says he made enough
money to retire on.  He also says the problem with GPL was it did not
adequately prevent commercial use by others.)  Hans Reiser plans to
dual-license ReiserFS and try to make money from that. 

However, the copyright owner can't withdraw code that is already out
there under the GPL.  The same is true of the BSD license; that's how
OpenSSH came to exist.

R

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