4 ms·

You can't change license of published work. They are changing license of the new stuff. You are free to keep using whatever you were using forever. It's the s

by LtWorf 4y ago

You can't change license of published work. They are changing license of the new stuff. You are free to keep using whatever you were using forever. It's the same as a maintainer just abandoning a project and you having to take over.

kazinator 4y ago
The copyright holder can absolutely change the license of a published work. The FOSS license thereby becomes unavailable; no new users can become licensees. If the FOSS license was such that it didn't restrict use, but only redistribution, then only the existing redistributors are licensees. The existing users have no rights. If the new license says that unlicensed use is not allowed, then the users are now infringing. They didn't agree to any license in order to use the program when it was free and therefore they are not in any agreement that can be grandfathered. Even if a license says that it's irrevocable (or some doctrine applies which makes it so, regardless) it can only be irrevocable to those users who have entered into the license. Those users may enjoy the continued right to redistribute the program. However, new users receiving the program do not benefit from the irrevocability; they have no existing license contract that can be grandfathered. If a program has gone from FOSS to "cannot redistribute or use", the situation is like that existing licensees are allowed to give away copies, but the new users receiving them aren't allowed to do anything with those copies. Software whose copyright holder has expressed revocation of a FOSS license should be regarded by all parties as a piece of radioactive or biohazardous waste. Don't even think about maintaining a fork or anything of the sort.
- jjav 4y ago
  > The FOSS license thereby becomes unavailable No, that's not how it works. If libfoo 2.0 was released under an open source license, it remains so into the future. If a company was the owner of that source code and decides the libfoo 2.1 is now suddenly proprietary and no longer open source they can certainly do that. But libfoo 2.0 remains open source and can be forked by the community or whoever wants. There are many examples of this, for example Open Solaris. When Oracle bought Sun they quickly reverted Solaris back to closed source. But not even the (arguably) most lawyered-up tech company in the world can change history and change the license on the the previous Open Solaris releases. That's how Solaris forked into the proprietary Solaris which Oracle still keeps alive and the open source descendants of Open Solaris (Illumos, etc.)
  - kazinator 4y ago
    > If libfoo 2.0 was released under an open source license, it remains so into the future. I would trust that only if the copyright holder makes it clear that they are not revoking the license for libfoo 2.0, but that libfoo 2.0.1 will be under a different license. If they indicate that they wish to revoke the license for previously released libfoo 2.0, it seems they have the right to do that; I don't want to be the one testing it in court. I don't know about the details of the Solaris/Oracle situation, but I doubt it hinged around it simply not being possible to revert a license, as such.
    - jjav 4y ago
      I probably can't convince you (that's fine), but no, a company can't rewrite history just because they want to. A company as aggressively litigious as Oracle would love nothing more than to kill off all Open Solaris forks. But Sun released Open Solaris with an open source license so it's not something they can change. Consult a lawyer whenever you need to use an open source project, their opinion carries weight that mine does not.
      - kazinator 4y ago
        You're not going to convince anyone with that Oracle Solaris example mainly because there is likely a reason they couldn't retract the license: tons of code in there for which they are not the sole copyright holders. At best they could take back the 100% Oracle-owned parts. The community would have to build to fill in the gaps. They couldn't revoke any files that have, say, a BSD license, even if Oracle (or Sun, before them) had modified them and added their own copyright notice, simply because they would need to contact the original authors and act in concert with them; those authors would likely refuse. I'm mainly talking about situations when the revoking party is actually 100% copyright holder to the majority of the files implementing the payload functionality, without which there is no software. I don't see how you the copyright holder would not have the right to revoke a FOSS license over it. Based on what? None of the existing licensees have a signed contract of any kind, nor has any exchange of value taken place; allowing free redistribution and use was an uncompensated, unilateral action. Even if there were a doctrine that existing redistributors were grandfathered forever, so they could continue making copies and giving it away, the license would not actually be available to the recipients, who are not existing licensees. The U.S. Copyright Act indeed has the concept of termination: https://cdas.com/copyright-termination-prime/ https://cdas.com/copyright-termination-prime/ There are limitations to it for various obvious reasons, like that you can't terminate the copyright assignment implicit in a work for hire. (Because, doh, you were paid.)
- LtWorf 4y ago
  Do you have any standing to make this wild claim that goes against any legal precedent? > If the FOSS license was such that it didn't restrict use, but only redistribution That's not a FOSS license to begin with. > If a program has gone from FOSS to "cannot redistribute or use", the situation is like that existing licensees are allowed to give away copies, but the new users receiving them aren't allowed to do anything with those copies. Users still get the copy with the old license. The company can't go on your disk and edit the license after you obtained the software and the license. > Don't even think about maintaining a fork or anything of the sort. Amazon does it… I'm sure their legal department was consulted.
  - kazinator 4y ago
    > That's not a FOSS license to begin with. Your understanding is deficient. Some of the most popular free licenses like GPL and BSD don't restrict use. Users don't have to enter into the licensing agreement at all, only those who redistribute. By using the software, you implicitly agree to the liability disclaimers, and that's about it. All of the conditions in the license have to do with redistributing. Licenses that restrict use in any way (e.g. "free for non-commercial use") are not free licenses. > The company can't go on your disk and edit the license after you obtained the software and the license. That's just a practical matter. If a license is revoked, the software will continue to be redistributed or used by people who don't even know about it. That doesn't mean it's legal. The same thing could happen to software that was improperly licensed to begin with. E.g. a rogue employee took some code without company authorization and put it out with a free license. They can't go into people's disks and erase the bits, but the software is not legally free. If you write a program and freely license it, such that Debian or Fedora pick it up, and then you write them a letter saying that the program isn't actually freely licensed, that it was a mistake, they will drop the thing like a hot potato. The GNU project requires signed copyright assignments from contributors who make more than a trivial change. That protects (or hopefully protects) the projects from backpedaling problems.
  - hnfong 4y ago
    > Do you have any standing to make this wild claim that goes against any legal precedent? What legal precedent are you talking about? In general, bare licenses (where the licensee does not give anything valuable to the licensor) can be revoked with sufficient notice. This is law in most jurisdictions I'm aware of. And this is taught to law students in their textbooks (heck if you just look up "bare licenses" in legal dictionaries you'll probably find something to that effect). Do you have any standing to claim that OSS goes against this general rule? The practical reason this doesn't happen is that revoking the OSS license of published code is pretty much un-enforceable and pointless exercise. There's no practical advantage that can be conceivably gained from such a stunt (unless you want the infamy for being the first person to attempt this), especially considering the PR fallout. But I'll assure you that, if you actually try, and send emails to legal departments of sufficiently large companies notifying them that you revoked an OSS license of a project that you own, most of those companies will avoid using your projects and will try to transition away. I can't imagine any half-decent corporate lawyer advising the company that they definitely won't get into trouble because the precedent says OSS copyright owners can't do this. FWIW I think some of them might actually tell you that you can't do this (which is mostly a bluff), but that's not going to be what they'll advise their clients/employers. Disclaimer: IANAL but have a law degree.
dark-star 4y ago
I never claimed that they change the license on the published work. The argument still stands: Nobody wants to use the old, possibly unmaintained version so everyone is buying the new commercial versions. At least that's their hope. And 90% of customers probably do, if they have reached a critical mass by that time. * Bait = get as many people to use your software as possible * Switch = THEN change the license (for new additions) so that as few people as possible jump ship. Bonus points if you do it shortly before adding a cool new feature that lots of people are waiting for Sometimes it works. Sometimes, Amazon is quicker and offers a product based on your version. The trick is to get the timing right...
- LtWorf 4y ago
  > The argument still stands it doesn't. It's a completely different argument. You want support buy support.

by LtWorf 4y ago

kazinator 4y ago

The copyright holder can absolutely change the license of a published work. The FOSS license thereby becomes unavailable; no new users can become licensees. If the FOSS license was such that it didn't restrict use, but only redistribution, then only the existing redistributors are licensees. The existing users have no rights. If the new license says that unlicensed use is not allowed, then the users are now infringing. They didn't agree to any license in order to use the program when it was free and therefore they are not in any agreement that can be grandfathered. Even if a license says that it's irrevocable (or some doctrine applies which makes it so, regardless) it can only be irrevocable to those users who have entered into the license. Those users may enjoy the continued right to redistribute the program. However, new users receiving the program do not benefit from the irrevocability; they have no existing license contract that can be grandfathered. If a program has gone from FOSS to "cannot redistribute or use", the situation is like that existing licensees are allowed to give away copies, but the new users receiving them aren't allowed to do anything with those copies. Software whose copyright holder has expressed revocation of a FOSS license should be regarded by all parties as a piece of radioactive or biohazardous waste. Don't even think about maintaining a fork or anything of the sort.

jjav 4y ago
> The FOSS license thereby becomes unavailable No, that's not how it works. If libfoo 2.0 was released under an open source license, it remains so into the future. If a company was the owner of that source code and decides the libfoo 2.1 is now suddenly proprietary and no longer open source they can certainly do that. But libfoo 2.0 remains open source and can be forked by the community or whoever wants. There are many examples of this, for example Open Solaris. When Oracle bought Sun they quickly reverted Solaris back to closed source. But not even the (arguably) most lawyered-up tech company in the world can change history and change the license on the the previous Open Solaris releases. That's how Solaris forked into the proprietary Solaris which Oracle still keeps alive and the open source descendants of Open Solaris (Illumos, etc.)
- kazinator 4y ago
  > If libfoo 2.0 was released under an open source license, it remains so into the future. I would trust that only if the copyright holder makes it clear that they are not revoking the license for libfoo 2.0, but that libfoo 2.0.1 will be under a different license. If they indicate that they wish to revoke the license for previously released libfoo 2.0, it seems they have the right to do that; I don't want to be the one testing it in court. I don't know about the details of the Solaris/Oracle situation, but I doubt it hinged around it simply not being possible to revert a license, as such.
  - jjav 4y ago
    I probably can't convince you (that's fine), but no, a company can't rewrite history just because they want to. A company as aggressively litigious as Oracle would love nothing more than to kill off all Open Solaris forks. But Sun released Open Solaris with an open source license so it's not something they can change. Consult a lawyer whenever you need to use an open source project, their opinion carries weight that mine does not.
    - kazinator 4y ago
      You're not going to convince anyone with that Oracle Solaris example mainly because there is likely a reason they couldn't retract the license: tons of code in there for which they are not the sole copyright holders. At best they could take back the 100% Oracle-owned parts. The community would have to build to fill in the gaps. They couldn't revoke any files that have, say, a BSD license, even if Oracle (or Sun, before them) had modified them and added their own copyright notice, simply because they would need to contact the original authors and act in concert with them; those authors would likely refuse. I'm mainly talking about situations when the revoking party is actually 100% copyright holder to the majority of the files implementing the payload functionality, without which there is no software. I don't see how you the copyright holder would not have the right to revoke a FOSS license over it. Based on what? None of the existing licensees have a signed contract of any kind, nor has any exchange of value taken place; allowing free redistribution and use was an uncompensated, unilateral action. Even if there were a doctrine that existing redistributors were grandfathered forever, so they could continue making copies and giving it away, the license would not actually be available to the recipients, who are not existing licensees. The U.S. Copyright Act indeed has the concept of termination: https://cdas.com/copyright-termination-prime/ https://cdas.com/copyright-termination-prime/ There are limitations to it for various obvious reasons, like that you can't terminate the copyright assignment implicit in a work for hire. (Because, doh, you were paid.)
LtWorf 4y ago
Do you have any standing to make this wild claim that goes against any legal precedent? > If the FOSS license was such that it didn't restrict use, but only redistribution That's not a FOSS license to begin with. > If a program has gone from FOSS to "cannot redistribute or use", the situation is like that existing licensees are allowed to give away copies, but the new users receiving them aren't allowed to do anything with those copies. Users still get the copy with the old license. The company can't go on your disk and edit the license after you obtained the software and the license. > Don't even think about maintaining a fork or anything of the sort. Amazon does it… I'm sure their legal department was consulted.
- kazinator 4y ago
  > That's not a FOSS license to begin with. Your understanding is deficient. Some of the most popular free licenses like GPL and BSD don't restrict use. Users don't have to enter into the licensing agreement at all, only those who redistribute. By using the software, you implicitly agree to the liability disclaimers, and that's about it. All of the conditions in the license have to do with redistributing. Licenses that restrict use in any way (e.g. "free for non-commercial use") are not free licenses. > The company can't go on your disk and edit the license after you obtained the software and the license. That's just a practical matter. If a license is revoked, the software will continue to be redistributed or used by people who don't even know about it. That doesn't mean it's legal. The same thing could happen to software that was improperly licensed to begin with. E.g. a rogue employee took some code without company authorization and put it out with a free license. They can't go into people's disks and erase the bits, but the software is not legally free. If you write a program and freely license it, such that Debian or Fedora pick it up, and then you write them a letter saying that the program isn't actually freely licensed, that it was a mistake, they will drop the thing like a hot potato. The GNU project requires signed copyright assignments from contributors who make more than a trivial change. That protects (or hopefully protects) the projects from backpedaling problems.
- hnfong 4y ago
  > Do you have any standing to make this wild claim that goes against any legal precedent? What legal precedent are you talking about? In general, bare licenses (where the licensee does not give anything valuable to the licensor) can be revoked with sufficient notice. This is law in most jurisdictions I'm aware of. And this is taught to law students in their textbooks (heck if you just look up "bare licenses" in legal dictionaries you'll probably find something to that effect). Do you have any standing to claim that OSS goes against this general rule? The practical reason this doesn't happen is that revoking the OSS license of published code is pretty much un-enforceable and pointless exercise. There's no practical advantage that can be conceivably gained from such a stunt (unless you want the infamy for being the first person to attempt this), especially considering the PR fallout. But I'll assure you that, if you actually try, and send emails to legal departments of sufficiently large companies notifying them that you revoked an OSS license of a project that you own, most of those companies will avoid using your projects and will try to transition away. I can't imagine any half-decent corporate lawyer advising the company that they definitely won't get into trouble because the precedent says OSS copyright owners can't do this. FWIW I think some of them might actually tell you that you can't do this (which is mostly a bluff), but that's not going to be what they'll advise their clients/employers. Disclaimer: IANAL but have a law degree.

dark-star 4y ago

I never claimed that they change the license on the published work. The argument still stands: Nobody wants to use the old, possibly unmaintained version so everyone is buying the new commercial versions. At least that's their hope. And 90% of customers probably do, if they have reached a critical mass by that time. * Bait = get as many people to use your software as possible * Switch = THEN change the license (for new additions) so that as few people as possible jump ship. Bonus points if you do it shortly before adding a cool new feature that lots of people are waiting for Sometimes it works. Sometimes, Amazon is quicker and offers a product based on your version. The trick is to get the timing right...

LtWorf 4y ago
> The argument still stands it doesn't. It's a completely different argument. You want support buy support.