On Wed, Mar 05, 2003 at 10:39:24AM -0800, Lawrence E. Rosen wrote: > Be sure to distinguish the following: > > * copyright in the original work (you apparently own that) > * copyright in the contributions (contributors own that) > * copyright in derivative works you create (you own that) > * copyright in collective works you create (you own that) > > When contributors give you their code to incorporate into your > derivative and collective works, thank them and accept their > contributions if you want to -- unless the contributors restrict you in > unacceptable ways by the license terms on their contributions. For > example, someone can send you a contribution but he restrict your use of > a patent; you can't incorporate such a contribution into a GPL-licensed > product (see GPL § 7). It is your duty, with your attorney's > assistance, to review the licenses of your contributors to make sure you > can use those contributions with your product. > > /Larry Rosen
I'm a little vague on how this would successfully work like the original poster asked. So, I'm going to explain how I see it and ask some questions: Bob makes product A and owns the sole copyright to it. Bob releases it under a dual license, the GPL and Bob's Commercial License. We'll say that Bob's Commercial License allows people who pay for a license to sell derived works without releasing the source code. Charlie downloads product A and uses it under the terms of the GPL. Charlie creates patch P which, when applied to A creates derived work AP. Charlie want's to send P back to Bob. Now, here's my first uncertainty: I think that the GPL requires that AP also be under the GPL, and it may also require that P be under the GPL too. I'm not exactly sure. Anyway, Charlie chooses to make P and/or AP available to Bob under the terms of the GPL. Bob wants to take P and incorporate it into his distribution. He also wants to incorporate his changes and release a new release B (which includes P) under his dual GPL/BCL license. Here's the part I don't get: Since P (or AP) is under the GPL, Bob shouldn't have any more right to relicense it under his dual license than Charlie would to relicense A under Charlie's Commercial License. Is there some magic in the dual license which helps Bob do what he wants? Or does Bob need to get a signed copyright assignment from Charlie in order to relicense P (as part of B) under the GPL/BCL dual? Chris -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3