Relicensing versus license compatibility (FSF Blog) [LWN.net]

The Free Software Foundation has published a short article on relicensing versus license compatibility.

The FSF's Licensing and Compliance Lab receives many questions and license violation reports related to projects that had their license changed by a downstream distributor, or that are combined from two or more programs under different licenses. We collaborated with Yoni Rabkin, an experienced and long time FSF licensing volunteer, on an updated version of his article to provide the free software community with a general explanation on how the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) is intended to work in such situations.

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This is actually a good one.

Posted Apr 10, 2026 5:22 UTC (Fri) by mirabilos (subscriber, #84359) [Link] (6 responses)

It does match community expectations and long-standing practice. From a BSD PoV, this is good.

This is actually a good one.

Posted Apr 10, 2026 8:35 UTC (Fri) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link] (5 responses)

Indeed. That is a point where the MIT and 2-BSD license differs, the MIT license allows sublicensing explicitly.

This is actually a good one.

Posted Apr 11, 2026 2:12 UTC (Sat) by mirabilos (subscriber, #84359) [Link]

Sublicencing does not come in here at all.

(And note that all rights are granted only if the requirements are met.)

This is actually a good one.

Posted Apr 11, 2026 11:53 UTC (Sat) by grmnsftphr (subscriber, #178591) [Link] (3 responses)

sublicensing means that's a licensee being allowed to license under the same license to another licensee. without it only the original licensee can license.

sublicensing is NOT relicensing, this is nowhere mentioned in the MIT license

This is actually a good one.

Posted Apr 14, 2026 14:53 UTC (Tue) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link] (2 responses)

That is not correct. Under Photographic Illustrators Corp. v. Orgill, Inc., the First Circuit held in 2020 that a sublicense doesn't even have to be explicitly written down, let alone identical to the original license.

This is actually a good one.

Posted Apr 15, 2026 12:51 UTC (Wed) by jamesh (guest, #1159) [Link] (1 responses)

Presumably the sublicense can't grant more rights than the previous licensee received from the original licensor. Also, if unmodified source was passed on to the sublicensee, I'm not sure how the sublicensor could enforce that they've passed on fewer rights, since it would be up to the copyright holder to enforce.

The sublicensing ability only really seems useful if you're producing derivative works (where you also hold copyright on some parts), or when you're distributing binaries (where it would be difficult to exercise other rights).

This is actually a good one.

Posted Apr 16, 2026 2:23 UTC (Thu) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link]

> I'm not sure how the sublicensor could enforce that they've passed on fewer rights, since it would be up to the copyright holder to enforce.

You sue for breach of contract. Copyright never enters the picture.