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Single-company free softwareSingle-company free softwarePosted Oct 11, 2005 10:25 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304)In reply to: Single-company free software by drag Parent article: Single-company free software
I think you may have a language problem. A copyright license is not `a license for distributing copyrights'. It's a license grant controlling the copying of works, as you yourself just admitted. We call `a license grant controlling the copying of works' a `copyright license'.
Copyright and property law have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with each other in UK or US law or any other jurisdiction I've heard of.
You are repeating canards.
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Single-company free software Posted Oct 11, 2005 12:19 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Well I suppose your right. Like I said I am not a lawyer.
It still doesn't say anywere in the GPL about it being 'a copyright license', much less in big bold letters. I suppose that's implied though.
Copyrights is based on the same legal concepts of property though. You make something it's your property because you made the effort to create it. Same thing with written works. You made it then the copyright ownership is essentially your property to give or sell as you choose. (or if you worked under contract to create the software then the people that hired you own the copyright)
Same fundamental concept, pretty much universal property stuff from the dawn of time. Natural law stuff, liberty type stuff.
Unlike, say something like, patents. Which is a relatively modern invention.
All I wanted to get across though was that the GPL has no transfer of the ownership of the copyrights, those are retained by the author and if that person or company owns all the copyrights then they can release versions under whatever license they choose. If they don't own all the copyrights to the software then they can only release under GPL if they obtained the software, at least partially, under the GPL themselves.
Single-company free software Posted Oct 11, 2005 15:00 UTC (Tue) by MortFurd (guest, #9389) [Link] SNIP...
All I wanted to get across though was that the GPL has no transfer of the ownership of the copyrights, those are retained by the author and if that person or company owns all the copyrights then they can release versions under whatever license they choose. If they don't own all the copyrights to the software then they can only release under GPL if they obtained the software, at least partially, under the GPL themselves.
That is the one absolutely correct statement that you have made. The copyright owner can change the license to take a piece of software out from the GPL. If you don't have full ownership of the copyright to it, then you cannot take a piece of GPLed software and place it under a different license.
On the other hand, even if you do own all copyright on a piece of GPLed software, you still cannot revoke the rights granted on previous versions of the software. Your new version can be proprietary, or be under any license you like - even one and the same version of the software can be available under different licenses. The GPLed copy stays under the GPL, though. This is what gives Free (as in freedom) software the ability to fork and continue even if the original copyright owner drops the project or takes it proprietary.
Single-company free software Posted Oct 13, 2005 19:31 UTC (Thu) by kreutzm (subscriber, #4700) [Link] Well, actually copy right is not an "natural" concept either. When only few people could read and write, copying was just natural (take the monks copying the bible or other works as examples). Just when copying became easy and more and more people were able to read, the concept of copyright sprung up.
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