Dual-licensing: revoking the GPL

In January, a developer chose to revoke the GNU GPL on his project. It generated quire a stir and even though growklaw seemed to be confident that such thing cannot happen, force is to note that the new GNU GPLv3 took care of adding the word irrevocable which was not in the GNU GPLv2. The Mattel cphack affair comes to mind and its repercussion on Free Speech.

In the same vein and commenting on dual-licensing is unfair and community debilitating, one of MTG readers made this remark that the main danger of dual-licensing lies  in the willingness of the driving company to stick to  their original plan.

I think one place where dual license can potentially be a problem is reflected in Yahoo's purchase of Zimbra. Do you realize that if Microsoft had purchased yahoo that they could have sinked Zimbra just like they did other open source projects.

At some point most(or some) of these projects sells out to another company which may not feel the same and all your investment and time will be lost if they decide to kill the project or no longer DL new codes.

This reminds us of MySQL giving back the management of MaxDB to SAP who chose to close the GNU GPL code immediately thereafter.

In October 2007 this reselling was terminated and sales and support of the database reverted back to SAP. SAP AG is now managing MaxDB development, distribution, and support. Source code of MaxDB is no longer available under the GNU General Public License.

Remember, less than 3 months later SUN announced  MySQL acquisition.

This paints a summary of what could happen to a DL company even if  nobody's initial commitment is questioned.

• DL Company dies: what happens to the IP/trademarks/licenses?
• DL Company undergoes a change of control: what happens to the community?
• DL company sells/gives its open source interest to a third party...

Shouldn't we have some sort of  open source prenuptial agreement applying to DL companies and their communities?

PS: On the same subject, a great post by Chris Smith.

This post is cited or quoted by:

• Sententia CDsmithus
• Planet Askell
• DZone

 

 

Comments

[Troy Hepfner]

That's what the license is for. It spells out the terms. If you feel that isn't enough, then go to the company and work with them to address your concerns. Most companies that open their source are looking to grow and develop a community around their code/product, so I think they're going to try to work with you on that. Work with them to address your what-if concerns before using their code or making contributions. If this requires additional agreements, then fine - but it may just require a change to the license itself. The important thing is to work with the company to address your concerns. I think that's the lesson you have to take away from the cases you cite.

Note, a company can choose to open their source under a non-GPL license, so whether GPL is irrevocable or not (which I believe it clearly is not revocable), it doesn't really matter because they can choose a license that isn't as clearly irrevocable. The thing is, if you want to use their code or contribute to it, and you have questions like the ones posed, go to the company and work it out with them like I said. If they aren't receptive, then don't use their code or join their community.

[Thomas Hansen]

This is plain FUD! If someone tries to "revoke" the rights from GPL then they're either lying and playing FUD around GPL which doesn't allow GPL or their product is so crappy in the first place that nobody wants to fork it to play a community version. However IP is IP and some SW vendor might choose NOT to release the NEXT version of their SW as GPL, though what's out there already is NOT in the hands of the IP owner anymore if it's copylefted... Anyone stating otherwise is LYING...!

[tds]

Can someone please go out and read the GPL license, it's not that complicated. If a company changes their licensing, you are free to fork it and start your own community and continue to provide the support you need for your software. THIS IS THE WHOLE POINT BEHIND OPEN SOURCE!

All I continue to see is developers who are all upset over the Ext JS switch, which wouldn't matter to open-source developers who can continue shipping their open source with the open-source Ext JS (because both are open source). So, it only matters to the hypocrites who are trying to make money from the software they've developed, while denying it to the developers whose software they rely on!

And this seems to be the whole problem developers have with GPL, you don't want to open your wallet, but you want everyone to open theirs for you!

You are all hypocrites! And I’m sick and tired of hearing about it!

[WOWOWOWOWOW]

I am utterly shocked by how little people understand about GPL. About 7 years ago I figured we would get to this point, but I am surprised it took so long.

Anyway, I can download the last GPL version, just the same as I could download the last LGPL version of ext, and fork it to be LGPL ext.

dingdingding: http://sourceforge.net/projects/atscap-gpl/ someone already did it. \o/ win.

I sense a lot of people on the fringe of open source doing Microsoft's job for them and trying to demonize GPL - perhaps the value in open source is now so high that random companies are warily trying to profit, and are unsure what GPL is.

Oh, and what Thomas Hansen said.

[Youy Don't Make Sense]

Of course you can revoke the GPL.

If you own all the copyright on a project you can license it at GPL.

You can then decide to license it as anything else, and release all your new updates to the source under that license.

You've just forked and relicensed your own copyright work.

However, those with the GPL versions can still carry on happy because they have all your copyright work as GPL, and they can continue to add to it as GPL.

They cannot relicense it however because they do not have the rights to license the copyrighted work.

So, your entire post is INSANELY STUPID.