Nick Guenther wrote:
My understanding is that the owner of the copyright can change the
license at any time, but that that change only applies to new
versions.
So:
if you are forking someone else's GNU code then you can't arbitrarily
make it BSD (because of the restrictions in the GPL). I think, though,
that it doesn't work the other way; the very open BSD license allows
for someone to take BSD code, make a change (or none?) and relabel it
all GPL.
if you are the original author of the code (and you haven't given the
rights away) then you can change the license at any time, but that
change only applies to new versions. You can take down old versions
but it's still perfectly legal for anyone with a copy of it to post it
and continue to work on it under the old license.
Correct me if I'm wrong!
-Nick
IANAL, but I believe the copyright holder can offer the work under any
license they wish, even without making a new version, as long as the
licenses are non-exclusive (i.e., if I've licensed my work to you
exclusively, then I can NOT also license it under GPL or BSD.) There are
examples out there of multiple simultaneous licenses.
So, the trick here might be to ask the author(s) if they'd be willing to
put it out under BSD as well as GPL. Many open source people use GPL by
default and are not fanatics about it either way. Worth an email...
--
Darrin Chandler | Phoenix BSD Users Group
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://bsd.phoenix.az.us/
http://www.stilyagin.com/ |
