On Mon, 13 Dec 1999, Chris Lawrence wrote: > On Dec 13, Henning Makholm wrote: > > I'm told that under American law, a promise that is made without > > getting something tangible (a "consideration") in return cannot be > > legally binding. That would seem to allow any free software license > > to be revoked as soon as the author wants to. > > > > I might be wrong, though. Can one of the American law guys comment? > > This month's Linux Magazine has an article about this subject (and > related concepts). It is possible that the right of future access to > source code could be considered "consideration," since the software > would not have been used in the absence of that right. > Certainly people who were contributing modifications to an existing GPL'ed code base would be getting a tangible consideration for doing so. I'm not sure how this would apply to original authors who don't accept external patches - mostly because of the "tangibility" requirement. On the other hand, you might be able to quantify in monetary terms the time spent by others in bug-finding and reporting even without patches.
> of such a ruling (because if the GPL is invalid, then NOBODY can use > GPLed code... it wouldn't revert to the public domain, which is the > only "benefit" that an overturned GPL might have to proprietary > software companies!). except the original authors, if they haven't accepted any patches significant enough to qualify for copyright protection. Lynn
