5 ms·

How exactly does that work, what stops anyone from maintaining a 1:1 branch, the "fork", with upstream and claiming it's GPL?

pram 8y ago
You can relicense MIT source to GPL. Nothing is stopping anyone from maintaining a relicensed fork like you described. The real question is, would anyone even use or contribute to that fork? (probably not)
- suby 8y ago
  It kind of defeats the purpose of GPL too. You can't keep future changes to the codebase public and open source since anyone who wants to do so will just not use your fork, so why bother?
  - wongarsu 8y ago
    Once somebody contributes to the fork the fork contains code that can't be backported to the MIT licenced version. The hope would presumably be that the GPL version grows faster since the GPL version can merge any change to the MIT version but not the other way around. In practise it wouldn't work all that well unless you pay a development team to push the GPL version significantly ahead, but it's a possibility.
- dbt00 8y ago
  That's not a correct statement. Nothing in the MIT license says that you can claim credit, ownership, or restrict licensing terms on someone else's code. What you can do, of course, is include the original MIT licensed work in a larger project with other GPL'd pieces. That does not "relicense" anything, and I'm only constrained by the GPL if I use the GPL'd part of the codebase. I can download X11 from Redhat and still use it under the original terms from MIT.
  - ckastner 8y ago
    > Nothing in the MIT license says that you can [...] restrict licensing terms The MIT license explicitly grants the right to sublicense.
    - protomyth 8y ago
      That’s different from relicensing the code https://writing.kemitchell.com/2016/09/21/MIT-License-Line-by-Line.html https://writing.kemitchell.com/2016/09/21/MIT-License-Line-b...
      - belorn 8y ago
        Seems people are talking past each other. The world "relicensing" doesn't exist in copyright, nor in the linked article. Instead there are some similar situation being bunched together and faulty used interchangeably. A copyright author can redistribute a work they own under new terms. This would be the case when they have offered a work under say MIT and change the copyright license for any future offer under the GPL. It is similar to a merchant changing the price, ie in the past the product cost X but now it cost Y. Naturally past customers don't suddenly have to pay more for something they already paid for, but buying more (or getting updates) applies the new price. The copyright author can also dual license it. In this case they would offer the work but under two different licenses at the same time. This would be like a merchant offering a product under two payment plans, one where you pay up front and an other more expensive method where you pay a small amount each month for a bigger total. In both cases the product is the same but the condition of sale is different. The MIT license itself also allows for something similar to resellers, ie people who take a copy and apply their own additional set of conditions when they distribute it. This doesn't change the original offer, but those getting a copy from the reseller has to honor the resellers term and condition in addition to the original conditions of the author. This is similar to going to a store where you pay both the product original price and the margin of the reseller. You can always go to the original manufacturer and only pay the original price, but you may miss out on features that the reseller include in their package.
  - wongarsu 8y ago
gh02t 8y ago
Nothing stops you. These licenses are philosophically very different from the GPL. They tend to be designed to provide literal freedom to do what you want with the code, basically as long as it doesn't interfere with the original use and provides acknowledgement. This includes relicensing it and including it in proprietary products.

pram 8y ago

You can relicense MIT source to GPL. Nothing is stopping anyone from maintaining a relicensed fork like you described. The real question is, would anyone even use or contribute to that fork? (probably not)

suby 8y ago
It kind of defeats the purpose of GPL too. You can't keep future changes to the codebase public and open source since anyone who wants to do so will just not use your fork, so why bother?
- wongarsu 8y ago
  Once somebody contributes to the fork the fork contains code that can't be backported to the MIT licenced version. The hope would presumably be that the GPL version grows faster since the GPL version can merge any change to the MIT version but not the other way around. In practise it wouldn't work all that well unless you pay a development team to push the GPL version significantly ahead, but it's a possibility.
dbt00 8y ago
That's not a correct statement. Nothing in the MIT license says that you can claim credit, ownership, or restrict licensing terms on someone else's code. What you can do, of course, is include the original MIT licensed work in a larger project with other GPL'd pieces. That does not "relicense" anything, and I'm only constrained by the GPL if I use the GPL'd part of the codebase. I can download X11 from Redhat and still use it under the original terms from MIT.
- ckastner 8y ago
  > Nothing in the MIT license says that you can [...] restrict licensing terms The MIT license explicitly grants the right to sublicense.
  - protomyth 8y ago
    That’s different from relicensing the code https://writing.kemitchell.com/2016/09/21/MIT-License-Line-by-Line.html https://writing.kemitchell.com/2016/09/21/MIT-License-Line-b...
    - belorn 8y ago
      Seems people are talking past each other. The world "relicensing" doesn't exist in copyright, nor in the linked article. Instead there are some similar situation being bunched together and faulty used interchangeably. A copyright author can redistribute a work they own under new terms. This would be the case when they have offered a work under say MIT and change the copyright license for any future offer under the GPL. It is similar to a merchant changing the price, ie in the past the product cost X but now it cost Y. Naturally past customers don't suddenly have to pay more for something they already paid for, but buying more (or getting updates) applies the new price. The copyright author can also dual license it. In this case they would offer the work but under two different licenses at the same time. This would be like a merchant offering a product under two payment plans, one where you pay up front and an other more expensive method where you pay a small amount each month for a bigger total. In both cases the product is the same but the condition of sale is different. The MIT license itself also allows for something similar to resellers, ie people who take a copy and apply their own additional set of conditions when they distribute it. This doesn't change the original offer, but those getting a copy from the reseller has to honor the resellers term and condition in addition to the original conditions of the author. This is similar to going to a store where you pay both the product original price and the margin of the reseller. You can always go to the original manufacturer and only pay the original price, but you may miss out on features that the reseller include in their package.
- wongarsu 8y ago

gh02t 8y ago

Nothing stops you. These licenses are philosophically very different from the GPL. They tend to be designed to provide literal freedom to do what you want with the code, basically as long as it doesn't interfere with the original use and provides acknowledgement. This includes relicensing it and including it in proprietary products.