4 ms·
As far as I can tell, this is not settled law. GPLv2 is not the only license without an explicit "no-take-backsies" clause, and pretty much all literature I've
by AlexMax 8y ago
As far as I can tell, this is not settled law.
GPLv2 is not the only license without an explicit "no-take-backsies" clause, and pretty much all literature I've read about open source previous to this incident suggested that although you could relicense future versions of the code, you couldn't put the genie back into the bottle on old releases.
Also, to be frank, I think that if there _was_ settled law saying you could rescind old licenses, it would have far-reaching ripple effects throughout the open source world. Let's be clear, it would be a weapon that could be used by any slighted maintainer or former maintainer to damage a project, for _any_ reason. And if a single or group of maintainers could do it, a corporation with dollar signs in its eyes could do it just as easily. Be careful what you wish for.