4 ms·
It depends. If you give someone code which has a LICENSE file containing the BSD 3-clause license -- you've given them a license to use that code under the spec
by slimsag 10y ago
It depends. If you give someone code which has a LICENSE file containing the BSD 3-clause license -- you've given them a license to use that code under the specified terms in the license, i.e. without charge etc.
In order to revoke access to the code from that user, you would have to get them to legally agree (i.e. sign something) that says they agree to having their license of that code revoked / that they will not use the code.
That is just for that one user -- at that one revision of code. If you wanted it such that _nobody_ could use your old codebase -- you'd have to get anyone who is using that code under said license to legally agree not to use it.
For new revisions of code, assuming a non-copyleft license like BSD, MIT, etc., you could simply state "we were the original owners of the code, therefore we no longer license the code under the open source license" and there is no need for you to distribute that code ever again.
In fact, this is why people can legally sell open-source software made by someone else -- even if that is ethically wrong to do.
IANAL, and some of the above is light on the details, so take it with a grain of salt / try not to be too nit-picky at me =)
- new299 10y agoFor reference, the code in discussion appears to have been released under the GNU Affero General Public License.
- Hydraulix989 10y ago> "In fact, this is why people can legally sell open-source software made by someone else -- even if that is ethically wrong to do." Why/how is it ethically wrong? If the license permits commercial sale (GPL, for example), then as long as the seller abides by the license (by making available a free download to the source code in the case of GPL, for example), then it is ethically valid because they aren't violating the license. If you develop open source software with a license that allows commercial use, you can't possibly get angry at users who fully abide by the license and commercialize the software, let alone call them "unethical." Either you don't distribute your software with a license that explicitly allows commercial use, or you can't possibly call a commercial user "unethical." That's the whole point of a license -- to definitively spell out in an unambiguous way the legal terms of usage. With GPL, it's not even close to being a "loophole," that license explicitly allows commercial use.