RE: Wasting our Freedom

David Schwartz
2007-09-17T15:26:18Z

> And if you choose the GPL the code you distribute will be under the GPL
> *only* forever [1], so what value would be in shipping terms that are
> void?

Not true. You cannot chose the license that applies to other people's code. The code you distribute contains protectable elements from different authors. Each element is still offered under whatever license the original author offered it under.

You cannot affect the license grant from the author to the lawful possessor of code you did not author.

The code you *contribute* will be under the GPL *only* forever. But the code you distribute will contain elements from different authors offered under different licenses.

> And if the author intended to have the BSD licence text kept intact when
> his code gets incorporated into GPL'ed code, why didn't he simply make
> his code BSD-only? In fact the only difference between BSD-only code and
> BSD/GPL dual-licenced code is that you can't remove the BSD licence text
> for the former when incorporating it into GPL'ed code...

That's true.

DS