5 ms·

A "huge win" being enacted by a complete disregard for the copyright holders who were kind enough to contribute to the project. I find this behavior utterly un

• Spivak 10y ago
  > What's to stop someone from relicensing a GPL program to closed-source. Nothing, but it doesn't retroactively affect anyone who already has a copy of the software under the GPL. What might stand in the way is a copyright holder refusing to go along with the relicensing.
• Manishearth 10y ago
  > A "huge win" being enacted by a complete disregard for the copyright holders who were kind enough to contribute to the project. Uh, no. That's not how this works. OpenSSL cannot change the license without say-so from all of the contributors, unless a CLA was signed. They do have a CLA, but just one granting a license, not one transferring ownership (and the right to relicense). At least, doesn't look like it. OpenSSL emailed everyone with commits on the project (e.g. me) a link to a page where you could say yes/no on this. In most cases this isn't a vote, it's all-or-nothing, though the choices of people with extremely minor (non copyrightable) contributions can be excluded IIRC. IANAL. (There is some discussion below about "if you don't reply we take that as a yes" being okay, though)
  • caf 10y ago
    I would guess that if only a small number of contributors disagree, they'll follow-up by asking those contributors which parts they claim a copyright interest in. Then it can be determined if it's feasible to go forward without those contributions or not.
    • Manishearth 10y ago
      Yeah, that's usually how this works. They can also rewrite the code or something, though that's tricky to do correctly.
  • newman314 10y ago
    "if you don't reply we take that as a yes" is NOT ok. That's like saying if you don't reply, you owe me $1mil. Makes no sense how the OpenSSL folks think this is remotely acceptable.
    • nitrogen 10y ago
      IANAL but the provisions in law and precedent for orphaned works and for jointly copyrighted works might come into play in that case.
      • flukus 10y ago
        Hey Disney, I'm publishing Micky mouse under the creative commons licence unless you object below within a week. It sounds pretty dodgy on several grounds.
        • nitrogen 10y ago
          Do you have joint copyright with Disney on any Mickey productions?
    • kibwen 10y ago
      They're daring you to sue them, in which case you would be required to provide a list of the parts of the code that you claim copyright over, which they could then attempt to excise via black-box reimplementation. It's one of those "ask forgiveness rather than permission" things, and is pretty much how every large project relicensing operates (the exceptions being those projects that require copyright assignment via signed CLA).
      • tomjen3 10y ago
        No need, you can just dmca the various people who use the software in violation of the project.
      • flukus 10y ago
        What happens if the Author dies? Are they and their heirs still the copyright holders? I always assumed anything licensed under the GPL would contain that license post mortem.
• caf 10y ago
  How exactly is making a good-faith effort to reach out to all those potential copyright holders "complete disregard"?