On Sat, 2007-06-09 15:57:55 +1000, Neil Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Saturday June 9, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > As we know the forthcoming GPL V3 will be not compatible with the GPL V2 > > and Linux Kernel is GPL V2 only. > > So, another point is, which is previously mentioned by Linus and others, > > that if it is decided to upgrade the Linux Kernel's License to GPL V3, > > it is needed the permission of all the maintainers permission who > > contributed to the Linux Kernel and there are a lot of lost or dead > > maintainers. Which makes it impossible to get all the maintainers' > > permission. > > You don't need the permission of maintainers. You need the permission > of copyright owners. The two groups overlap, but are not the same. > Dead people cannot own anything, even copyright. Their estate > probably can. I don't think it is theoretically impossible to get > everyone's permission, though it may be quite close to practically > impossible.
And the next question is: How much copyright does a copyright owner
own? For example, think of drivers written by one person, but a small
number of lines changed here and there by others to adopt the code to
new APIs. Ask them all, I think?
MfG, JBG
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Jan-Benedict Glaw [EMAIL PROTECTED] +49-172-7608481
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