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Does anyone know the details on switching licenses? For example, how it affects previous versions? Can the copyright owner switch licenses at anytime? If ther

Does anyone know the details on switching licenses? For example, how it affects previous versions? Can the copyright owner switch licenses at anytime? If there’s a resource in this I’d love to read more, too.

tsss 6y ago
In the case of MIT license you can change the license of future and past versions as long as you have no other copyright holders (i.e. contributors) but that won't help you much unless nobody has actually made use of that license on previous versions. They retain that license and can still publish it under MIT even if you do not. I think revocation of the license is only possible when the terms were violated.
cmeacham98 6y ago
> For example, how it affects previous versions? It does not affect older veraions - unless the previous license has a provision for this (and I doubt many people would be willing to use software with such a license). > Can the copyright owner switch licenses at anytime? Yes, but many open source projects are made up of many copyright holders due to external contributors.
jarofgreen 6y ago
The copyright owner can switch license on any future versions of the software at any point. But the complication is that if the software project is made up of contributions from 100 different people, it's not immediately clear who the copyright owner is. In the worst case you might have to get permission from all 100 people before you can switch. This is the problem contributor agreements were designed to solve. Of course, some people call this a feature and not a bug.
- kevincox 6y ago
  IANAL but I believe that you can always switch to a strictly more restrictive license because doing so is effectively licensing new changes with the new license. You can't switch to a license that is less restrictive without agreement of the owners because that would require granting additional rights to the existing code.

tsss 6y ago

In the case of MIT license you can change the license of future and past versions as long as you have no other copyright holders (i.e. contributors) but that won't help you much unless nobody has actually made use of that license on previous versions. They retain that license and can still publish it under MIT even if you do not. I think revocation of the license is only possible when the terms were violated.

cmeacham98 6y ago

> For example, how it affects previous versions? It does not affect older veraions - unless the previous license has a provision for this (and I doubt many people would be willing to use software with such a license). > Can the copyright owner switch licenses at anytime? Yes, but many open source projects are made up of many copyright holders due to external contributors.

jarofgreen 6y ago

The copyright owner can switch license on any future versions of the software at any point. But the complication is that if the software project is made up of contributions from 100 different people, it's not immediately clear who the copyright owner is. In the worst case you might have to get permission from all 100 people before you can switch. This is the problem contributor agreements were designed to solve. Of course, some people call this a feature and not a bug.

kevincox 6y ago
IANAL but I believe that you can always switch to a strictly more restrictive license because doing so is effectively licensing new changes with the new license. You can't switch to a license that is less restrictive without agreement of the owners because that would require granting additional rights to the existing code.