The Revocable GPL in the US (Groklaw) [LWN.net]

The Revocable GPL in the US (Groklaw)

Posted Jan 29, 2008 13:12 UTC (Tue) by kirkengaard (subscriber, #15022)
In reply to: The Non-Revocable GPL (Groklaw) by rene.herman
Parent article: The Non-Revocable GPL (Groklaw)

The real scoop is further down in the comments. US copyright law has some "notwithstanding" elements that allow the owner/owners of the copyright to revoke, provided proper notice, after 35-40 years. Notice is to be given not less than two, but not more than ten years from the date of revocation.

This is a gloss, obviously -- read the discussion for better details, or the relevant USC. The link for the comment is here, but the best analysis is under "Holy cow, it actually IS legal". You can follow along in Title 17, chapter 2, section 203 of US Code, "Termination of transfers and licenses granted by the author."

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The Revocable GPL in the US (Groklaw)

Posted Jan 29, 2008 18:53 UTC (Tue) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]

That's another, and more devastating, sort of revocation.  It says that all the existing
licenses are void, and any chosen subset of the existing licensees have no more right to
distribute.  It's different from choosing not to issue new licenses, which is what is under
discussion here.

The Revocable GPL in the US (Groklaw)

Posted Jan 29, 2008 20:55 UTC (Tue) by jd (guest, #26381) [Link]

Depends on how "published" is interpreted. My guess would be that a new release would be regarded no differently than a revised edition of a book, but I'm not sure how that is regarded either. Since revisions and reprints are considered distinct on the copyright page, I would guess that revisions are considered distinct publications, but that is not certain to me.

If I am correct, however, then RMS could re-license the first releases of Emaacs or GCC, but as the documents make it clear only the holder of copyright can change the license, nobody else could. There is almost no other Open Source software that is the required 35+ years old.

There is another consideration. The GPL would seem to imply that if a person were to exploit this technicality and re-license GPL software such that it was no longer GPLed in any form, then that person would be barred from ever obtaining or using any other GPL software. The GPL may be self-protecting in that seems to offer no rights to a person who has previously performed non-free actions on any other GPL software, whether or not that non-free action was legal, except in the case of wholly internal changes.

If I'm right, then even if this action was legal, subsequent obtaining and use of GPL software violates the license of that subsequent software through the license's consideration of past activity.