Single-company free software

Posted Oct 11, 2005 6:54 UTC (Tue) by drag (guest, #31333)
In reply to: Single-company free software by hgj
Parent article: Single-company free software

GPL is a software license dealing with redistributing software... It doesn't deal with copyrights, it doesn't deal with patents (there is implied contract.. (if you give somebody the right the use software, but sue them for using it is something that would fail in a courtroom) but it's not explicit).

If you can release a peice of software that was released under the GPL under a new closed source license depends on weither or not your a copyright holder.

Under the GPL you can use, modify, and redistribute any copies or modified copies of GPL'd software. Just as long as you release the source code if the end user wants it. If you don't release the source code under request then you loose your rights under the GPL.

But if you wrote the software, or at least obtained the copyright, then GPL doesn't deal with you. You own it you do what you want with it. You have to own ALL of the copyright though. If you have a patch or add-on code for a program you got under the gpl, it doesn't make it yours.

Soooo...

If InnoBase owned all the copyrights for InnoDB then Oracle could release it under closed source license since I assume that by buying out Innobase Oracle also bought the copyrights.

If InnoDB doesn't own all the copyrights and a part of their product is only aviable to them under the GPL license, then Oracle can't release it under a closed source license anymore then Innobase, you, or I could do.

What they can do instead though is stop all new developement on InnoDB. Maybe somebody will start a community effort around the GPL'd version if that happens.

Single-company free software

Posted Oct 11, 2005 8:52 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (5 responses)

GPL is a software license dealing with redistributing software... It doesn't deal with copyrights, it doesn't deal with patents (there is implied contract.

Yes, it's a license. A copyright license. It says as much in huge letters.

If it were a contract, in many jurisdictions there'd have to be an exchange of consideration and something like a signature or some other explicit acceptance.

None of these are generally held to be true for the GPL, as I understand it.

Single-company free software

Posted Oct 11, 2005 9:21 UTC (Tue) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (4 responses)

Yes, it's a license. A copyright license. It says as much in huge letters.

Show me. I said it was a license. A license dealing with distrubuting software. It does not with distributing copyrights. When a software author distributes software under the GPL he retains full copyrights.

Fundamentally all software licenses, including GPL, are based on copyright law. The GPL especially leverages copyright law agressively because copyrights are a fundamental to most forms of property law around the world and enforced by many international treaties.

If it were a contract, in many jurisdictions there'd have to be an exchange of consideration and something like a signature or some other explicit acceptance.

None of these are generally held to be true for the GPL, as I understand it.

I never said it was a contract. It's a license, I said it was a license.

Single-company free software

Posted Oct 11, 2005 10:25 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (3 responses)

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.

Single-company free software

Posted Oct 11, 2005 12:19 UTC (Tue) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (2 responses)

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...

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 (guest, #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.