> If I have the rights to re-license software, and I re-license the > software, why do I not have permission to enforce these rights?
Because you have the permission to re-DISTRIBUTE (not "re-LICENSE") the software and nothing else. Note that I changed "right" to "permission". The owner of the software (the copyright holder) has given you specific permissions to do certain things with the software. Re-distributing it is one of them. But you're not the OWNER of the software. You're also not re-LICENSING the software. If I write some software and apply the GPL to it and you get a copy, you have my permission to redistribute that software to a third person. But the license that the third person receives is from ME, not you. If a person you give it to violates the GPL (e.g., by giving somebody a binary copy and refusing to give them the sources), that person has violated a license with ME and only *I* can persue it legally. > Personally, this whole issue is problematic to me. I really can't see > why I would ever sue somebody for using software that I had declared > free. If they made it NON-FREE! See above.
