> > ***Anyone*** is free to take software licensed under the AFL and > > re-license it under any license, including licenses not > containing the > > I just want to confirm that I have interpreted the above > statement correctly. > > Anyone can take APL licensed software as a whole and > distribute it under different licensing conditions, but the > license of the individual source code files cannot be changed > from APL into another license. That is, I cannot take APL > licensed software and physically replace the license with the GPL. > > Is this correct? (if not, I would be seriously concerned > about suggesting anybody to apply the APL to any software.)
If I read your words correctly, yes, that's the intention. Let me describe it more precisely this way: Person A licenses copyrightable work W to Person B under the AFL. Person B must honor the terms and conditions of the AFL. The AFL permits Person B to create collective work W+X, to create derivative work W', and to distribute copies of W, W+X and W' under any open source or proprietary license not expressly incompatible with the AFL, including the GPL and Apache licenses. Because the AFL does not allow sublicensing, W (alone or as part of W+X and W') is always subject to the AFL and the license to W always comes from Person A. [Anyone can look at the source code to see that trail of ownership, because of the Attribution Notice provision in the AFL.] Person A can always enforce his license to W against anyone who uses W. And anyone who has a copy of W+X or W' has two licenses, one from Person A (for that part that was W) and one from Person B (for W+X or W'). Person A is not responsible in any respect for W+X or W'. In practice, because the AFL is so forgiving a license, Person A won't much care what Person B does with W. And the ultimate consumer will know that at least W is free and open source software regardless of what Person B does. /Larry Rosen -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3