Return to BSD News archive
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!swrinde!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.kei.com!news.ssd.intel.com!news.jf.intel.com!haertel From: haertel@ichips.intel.com (Mike Haertel) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,comp.unix.misc Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD Date: 12 Dec 1995 18:18:42 GMT Organization: Intel Corporation, Hillsboro, Oregon, USA Lines: 31 Message-ID: <4akh22$b8s@news.jf.intel.com> References: <489kuu$rbo@pelican.cs.ucla.edu> <DJ3DM7.n0L@kroete2.freinet.de> <4ag0pi$rqg@sundog.tiac.net> <4aianr$52o@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: pdxcs145.intel.com Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.advocacy:30210 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:10371 comp.unix.advocacy:12161 comp.unix.misc:20073 In article <4aianr$52o@daffy.anetsrvcs.uwrf.edu>, BENJAMIN A LINDSTROM <bl03@uwrf.edu> wrote: >Sorry..It's very hard to take something out of GPL once it's in it.=) >You have to re-write all the parts that are GPLed. So this part of your >logic is not really good.=) Try again! You're wrong. Putting something under the GPL in no way gives up your legal rights to it. If you are the sole author of a GPL'd product, you can redistribute it under any terms you please. However you cannot prevent the people who got it under the GPL from redistributing that copy. So, for example, if I am the sole author of Foobar-1.0 and distributed under the GPL, there's nothing to stop me from going proprietary with Foobar-1.1. (It wouldn't really make sense to go propreitary with Foobar-1.0 since people could still get the GPL'd version.) The situation is much different when there are multiple authors. If I had accepted contributions from other people in Foobar-1.1 then I would have to get either permission or assignment of copyright from each of the contributors before changing the licensing terms. This is why it would be very hard to un-GPL the Linux kernel--it has contributions from literally hundreds of authors, all of whom made their work available under the GPL, and all of whom would have to agree to a change of licensing terms. (Or you could rewrite all parts of the kernel written by authors who didn't agree with your new licensing terms--but, especially due to Linus' lack of formal revision control, it would be very hard to determine who wrote what, so you'd basicly have to rewrite the whole thing.)