Polacco Fabrizio (NTC/He) wrote:
>
> > From: Wojciech Zabolotny
> >
> > I thought, that the main goal of GPL license is to give a warranty that
> > the source of the software and derived works will be ALWAYS freely
> > available.
<snip>
>
> You cannot see such warranty even in the GPL.
> The owner of the copyright has always the right to change the license.
> That's why the FSF says that if you want to insure that _all_future_ version
> of a product will be free you have to pass the copyright to the FSF.
Not necessarily... for example, take the KDE case. It is GPLd, even if
the use of it necessarily violates the GPL because of the need of
linking to the Qt libraries. Now this could be solved by a change in
the licensing terms, which would be a GPL plus a provision for linking
with (and perhaps only with) Qt.
The problem is that, as many people contributed significantly (more
than two or three lines of code), every one of these people would have
to agree in writing with the change. The whole mess is better explained
in Debian and Red Hat press releases about their decision of not
including KDE.
The point here is that even if theoretically possible, it can be very
difficult to un-GPL a piece of code if you are not the sole author of
it. If there are authors uncooperative with your will to change the
licensing terms, or even too many authors, your program will be
effectively GPL for eternity.
Am I wrong about this?
--
Leandro Guimaraens Faria Corcete Dutra
Amdocs Brasil Ltda
