4 ms·

No, they can't take them back. BSD and MIT aren't revokable. Anyone can fork them, but the BSD code remains available.

• flukus 10y ago
  And because android is tied to google a fork would work and the current android would fall farther behind, it's already a fork of linux, just an OSS one.
• dragonwriter 10y ago
  As I understand it, in US law any gratuitous license is revocable at will; terms of a written license that purport otherwise may (or may not), depending on the specific circumstances of use after revocation, impact the effect of revocation under the doctrine of promissory estoppel, but that's not the same as the license actually being irrevocable. Of course, while there are conflicting theories about whether the GPL is gratuitous or not (and this may actually vary from case to case—if you buy software that comes with GPL terms, it is clearly not gratuitous), this potentially affects the GPL as much as any permissive license.
  • Nomentatus 10y ago
    You may be assuming that no consideration is given (consideration being necessary to create a legal contract) - but in general charities and public goods are the exception to this; the public good done is assumed to be consideration according to law. Therefore, for example, pledges to charities are regarded as valid contracts that can be enforced.
• X86BSD 10y ago
  This is a common fallacy GPL enthusiasts often spew. You can't make BSDL code disappear all you can do is fork it and add or modify to your copy of it. The original is still there.