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> The company distributing open source could change license anytime they wish That really depends on the license and whether there's a CLA in play. If the code
by yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
> The company distributing open source could change license anytime they wish
That really depends on the license and whether there's a CLA in play. If the code is copyleft (most likely GPL but there are others) and they take 3rd party contributions under that license then it's generally not possible/practical to relicense. (IANAL, YMMV)
- YetAnotherNick 3y agoLinux is GPL licensed and has CLA. And it is open source in most definitions of open source.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y agoDoes it? I couldn't seem to find anything about that. The closest I could find was https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/1.Intro.html#licensing https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/1.Intro.html#... which says > Copyright assignments are not required (or requested) for code contributed to the kernel. All code merged into the mainline kernel retains its original ownership; as a result, the kernel now has thousands of owners. and then goes on to explain exactly how that prevents re-licensing. I suppose the possible nitpick is if CLA == copyright assignment; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contributor_License_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contributor_License_Agreement seems to agree with my existing impression that there's little functional difference.
- YetAnotherNick 3y agoSorry, I did google search and misattributed it. All GNU and FSF projects has CLA[1]. And having GPL is an understatement for them as they created GPL and they have been a leader of open source for 40 years. [1]: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html