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Changing the Software License?

Posted by Cliff on from the decisions-decisions dept.

plaa asks: "I was wondering what it would take to change the license of some software. Is it enough if all the authors accept the change or do the licenses have to be 'compatible'? Does this affect the older versions of the program in any way? What if somebody has already used some code from the program in a program of his own? How easy would it be to migrate software to it (so that the older version was not an option to the user)?" What, in particular, do users and developers have to worry about when something that once was free, becomes commercial?

5 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. you don't have to by Frac · · Score: 4
    Note: I believe that the topic I mention here actually deserves an AskSlashdot article all by itself, since it's an interesting topic, but since my article submission has been sitting in the queue since February 20th, and CmdrTaco never did anything after I e-mailed him (I e-mailed him before he left), I'll post this question in a fairly relevant article. I'll ask my question first, and you'll see how it's not offtopic (Maybe touchy subjects like this is getting too controversial for Slashdot - if it's not, I'd like to see them make a new news article about it)

    Here's my question. Can licenses be applied to patches?. One good example of this is the LAME Encoder. A little more background for those who don't know what it is. There is an ISO-based mp3 encoder, along with source code, that is freely available for download. The source code though, is heavily broken in many places, and the sound quality of a ISO-based mp3 encoder is very subpar compared to the commerical mp3 encoder of Fraunhofer, one of the leading companies behind the technology of mp3. However, Fraunhofer owns a lot of patents to the methods behind encoding mp3, so a couple of years ago, they decided to send legal threats everyone that offered a compiled version or modified version of the ISO-based encoder.

    LAME, according to the homepage, is "not an mp3 encoder. It is a GPL'd patch against the dist10 ISO demonstration source. LAME is totally incapable of producing an mp3 stream. It is incapable of even being compiled by itself. You need the ISO source for this software to work. The ISO demonstration source is also freely available, but any commercial use (including distributing free encoders) may require a license agreement from FhG."

    Here's my point - are patches covered under the GPL (or any license?). If yes, what's going to stop someone from creating a Artistic license patch for Linux the linux kernel? Or a Sun Community License? Or a completely proprietery license? Remember, what LAME does is GPL-infect a piece of code that is has no copyright on, simply by patching it. By extending this analogy a little further, you can see that there is no real need to respect the original author's copyright, since you can just patch his source code with whatever license you got.

    So, the answer is yes, you can change the license - it's all too easy. But should it be this way?

  2. Taking away what was granted by Myshkin · · Score: 4

    A software liscense grants users the right to use a piece of software in a specified manner. Once granted it can't be taken away. There is no way to remove the rights a person has already been granted by the copyright holder. Subsequent releases need not be released under the same terms. A case in point is the 'commercialization' of UNIX by AT&T. All prior work remained in the public domain and became BSD unix.

  3. The GPL, for one, is versatile by ftobin · · Score: 4

    Many complain about the GPL's restrictiveness, but it is more flexible than most other licences in one crucial way. The standard license which most people apply says:

    Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.

    In my opinion, this is one great, saving feature of the GPL; if at some time the FSF decides that the license needs to be changed, they can affect so, so many pieces of software in existence.

    While many may feel that giving this sort of licensing power to the FSF is a bad thing, there are many of us here who feel that the FSF has good intentions, and will appropriately yield the power to release our code in a good manner if we pass on.

  4. Yes, it is possible by Rayban · · Score: 5

    I asked the FSF about this one a little while back and it applies to all licenses.

    Unless you sign away your copyright for a license, the work is, and always will be, yours. The license only tells *other* people what rights they have.

    If you aren't the full copyright owner, you MUST get the other author's permission. Once you have that, you can change the license without worrying about legal stuff. I'd recommend you get it in writing if you have physical contact with the other authors.

    This is how people can release source code under multiple licenses. There's nothing stopping you from releasing something under the artistic license, the GPL and having a closed source version at the same time!

    In short: if everyone agrees, everything is A-OK.

    --
    æeee!
  5. Licensing by rcw-work · · Score: 5
    IANAL.

    By default, everything copyrightable is Copyright The Author, All Rights Reserved. Licenses are just contracts to grant you, the user, certain copy rights (like the right to install it onto your computer or put it on an ftp site).

    You can hand out as many of these contracts as you like, they can all be different, and you can change new ones that you hand out, but once you give someone a license to do something with that code, you cannot retract that license unless there was a termination clause in the license.

    Free software licenses are kind of unique because they license everyone automatically.

    So, say ssh was created and licensed to everyone under the BSD license. SSH Communications Security , the owners of this code, decide they can make money off of ssh, so they release it under a license that suits them. Anyone that had a previously-licensed copy of ssh is still free to do anything they like under the BSD license, including fork it into OpenSSH.

    In order to prevent people from using the old code under the old license, you either have to terminate their license (using a termination clause already in the license agreement) or you have to make the old code worthless to them. Usually any progress in this direction is at the expense of your users and is considered evil. :)

    If you are the author of foobarbaz, a shareware app for Linux, and you include code from other people's software (other libraries, etc) then you have to respect those licenses (i.e. releasing under GPL would be a bad idea) or reimplement those functions so that you don't need the other libraries. If it's under 10 lines of code, it's fair use to do anything with it (less than 10 lines of code are not copy protected, thus no licenses are needed). If your buddy helped write code for foobarbaz, and there's more than 10 lines, he/she has copyright over his portions and you need to ask permission from him/her first.

    This is why the Netscape -> Mozilla transition had to rip out a lot of things like Java and RSA support.