From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Feb 18 10:45:51 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA21056 for chat-outgoing; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 10:45:51 -0800 (PST) Received: from rocky.mt.sri.com (rocky.mt.sri.com [206.127.76.100]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id KAA21033 for ; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 10:45:43 -0800 (PST) Received: (from nate@localhost) by rocky.mt.sri.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id LAA18064; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 11:45:34 -0700 (MST) Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 11:45:34 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <199702181845.LAA18064@rocky.mt.sri.com> From: Nate Williams MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: dg@root.com Cc: Snob Art Genre , "David O'Brien" , chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: GPL In-Reply-To: <199702180957.BAA05064@root.com> References: <199702180957.BAA05064@root.com> Sender: owner-chat@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > >> Say someone has written fooquix and from version 0.01 to 0.49 it was > >> GPL'ed. Then they decided they wanted to make some $$$ from it. So the > >> next release (say 0.50) was binary only. Now obiviously 0.50 is derived > >> work based on the GPL'ed code of 0.49. > >> > >> Is this allowable, or once software is under GLP it stays there? > > > >It's allowable, because you, as the author of the GPL'd code, have the > >right to release yourself from the GPL, I believe. > > Suppose that 20 other people contributed patches to it during the time > it was under GPL? ...you'd have to get written permission from all of those > people before you could put a different copyright on it. This is why the FSF requires that all submitters of code to their tools sign over the Copyright to the FSF, which apparently will make sure the code is always free. (Although last night I had a interesting discussion on that point where it would be possible that the code could become 'non-free') Nate