Reuben, Once something's in the GPL it's free software. It can't be taken back. Future releases under the same license can be halted, however. And those copyright holders may not contribute new open source material to the new non-GPL version / release of Linux, but there's money to be made for them staying by with Linux even after a shift to a non-GPL form (and probably especially after a shift to non-GPL actually).
How could the FSF be taken over forcibly? Best regards, Rick C. Hodgin -------- Original Message -------- From: Reuben Thomas <[email protected]> Sent: Thu, Jun 7, 2012 05:21 PM To: Rick C. Hodgin <[email protected]> CC: [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: Re: [Ghm-discuss] Main Topic for 2012 >On 7 June 2012 21:34, Rick C. Hodgin <[email protected]> wrote: >> We are one company offering Linus $500 million for >> Linux rights away from being done. > >Actually Linux has too many copyright holders for this to be >practical, whereas the FSF's policy of copyright assignment does make >it vulnerable to this sort of hostile takeover: there's only one >entity to be bribed, bought out or otherwise acquired. > >-- >http://rrt.sc3d.org
