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Can you actually revoke it in practice? I’m not deeply familiar with MIT (and personally always opt for Apache as it’s more well understood), but I didn’t think
by zeeg 3y ago
Can you actually revoke it in practice? I’m not deeply familiar with MIT (and personally always opt for Apache as it’s more well understood), but I didn’t think that was possible.
- scj 3y agoIn the scenario I've constructed, yes. The trick is that you don't need to threaten everybody, just any fork that gains traction and might be a viable open source project. Otherwise stated, you don't go after every user, just the competition.
- zeeg 3y agoI believe you’re suggesting revocation means something else. Once the software is released under a license you’ve created a legal contract granting those terms. You can’t (at least in the referenced licenses) rewind and take away the license grant. Sure you can fork it and license new code in a different way, but that’s not the same thing.
- tonyarkles 3y ago> Once the software is released under a license you’ve created a legal contract granting those terms. I’m not a lawyer but I’ve followed the “is it a license or is it a contract” thing for 25 years now. One important part of the confusion here is that a contract requires mutual consideration; unilateral “contracts” aren’t contracts at all. The long-term argument is that the source code is subject to copyright which implicitly would not allow distribution; the license is what grants additional permissions on top of what copyright does and doesn’t allow, and thus probably could be revoked.
- the_mitsuhiko 3y agoWe as an industry and community have settled on the irrevocably of Open Source licenses. I doubt that any court would rule against this notion today. Too much would be at stake.