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  From: Alan Kennington <akenning@topology.org>
  To  : LinuxSA <linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au>
  Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 14:25:37 +0930

Re: GPL question

On Thu, Jun 28, 2001 at 03:12:08PM +0930, Matthew Geddes wrote:
> 
> If a person were to make a whole bunch of contributions to a GPL'd
> project (a considerable amount) and then (for whatever reason) decides
> to fork off with a copy of the code (which is fine, under the GPL), but
> then demands the original team stop using his code, what happens? I
> would be tempted to believe that the person would be out of luck, but
> what do you all think?


Matt,

The experts on the list will have their say.
But since I'm not an expert, I'll get a word in before they start.

It seems to me clear that the code has already been released
under GPL, and anyone who received the code under that licence
can do whatever they like, subject to the licence.
I.e. the contributor cannot revoke the licence once it is given.

However, the contributor can develop new code using
only that contributor's contributions and re-issue
new code under any kind of licence at all.
So that contributor is in the situation of being forced to
adopt the GPL him/herself if using any of the code that
he/she did not write.

So I don't see anything ambiguous about this at all.

The principle is:
You can't revoke a perpetual licence.

Cheers,
Alan Kennington.

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