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There are 219 contributors going back over a decade. Did they all either consent to the repeated license changes or sign away their rights with an CLA? You ca

by donatj 3y ago

There are 219 contributors going back over a decade. Did they all either consent to the repeated license changes or sign away their rights with an CLA? You can’t just relicense contributions willy-nilly - without an CLA or similar agreement assigning ownership, contributions retain copyright of their original author.

Denvercoder9 3y ago
They can't relicense contributions, but they can add new GPL-licensed contributions. That makes the whole work a derivative work in the sense of the GPL, which means the requirements of the GPL apply to all of it. Effectively this is the same as if all the contributions were relicensed under the GPL. The only significant difference is that you can still cut out a part of the code that hasn't been touched by a GPL-licensed contribution and use it under the terms of the MIT license. None of this violates the MIT license of the original contributions, as it allows you to do basically anything, including sublicensing, with the code, provided that you retain the copyright notice.
pjmlp 3y ago
They can, because MIT.
alwayslikethis 3y ago
The general understanding is you can relicense MIT to GPL, but not the other way around. MIT has no requirement that you use the same license, only that the permission and attribution notice remains.
depr 3y ago
Do you mean CLA? I said the same thing about the recent Redis change. Apparently, the old contributions are still under the old license, and new contributions will be GPL. Because the old license is MIT, those contributions can be incorporated in the new GPL version. So there the old contributions are not relicensed and there is no need for it. If the old license were GPL and they wanted to move to e.g. BUSL, then they would have to ask all the contributors because GPL doesn't allow that.
- draven 3y ago
  But then they will sell you a license to use the whole project including their GPL bits. It's legal, but it's kind of a bait and switch and can be perceived negatively by the community. It's similar to what was done to Akka.
- rapnie 3y ago
  Drew Devault forked Redis, made the fork LGPL, then got so many questions that he created a fun little licensing quiz: https://fosstodon.org/@drewdevault/112156829031615403 https://fosstodon.org/@drewdevault/112156829031615403
  - Denvercoder9 3y ago
    Can anyone explain why the answer to the second question (https://fosstodon.org/@drewdevault/112156847020462949 https://fosstodon.org/@drewdevault/112156847020462949) is "no"? The MIT license grants all the rights that the GPL requires to be granted for derivative works (it is GPL-compatible). Is the problem here just that they don't distribute or offer the source code of the GPL-licensed library along with the pre-built binaries?
    - homarp 3y ago
      it is because GPL is viral https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WhatDoesCompatMean https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WhatDoesCompatMean
      - Denvercoder9 3y ago
        I'm aware of that, but I'd like to know what specifically violates the GPL in the posed scenario. Your very link states that it's okay to distribute combinations of GPL-licensed code with code licensed under another, GPL-compatible license (which MIT is).
        panzi 3y ago
        Confuses me too. Maybe its because they didn't say that the code was also distributed and that they didn't explicitly say that they use a certain library that is under the GPL?
Starlevel004 3y ago
> You can’t just relicense contributions willy-nilly It's a good thing that the MIT licence allows sublicencing, which means that you can add a single GPL file to a project to immediately relicence it to the GPL as a combined work.
- kavalg 3y ago
  IANAL, but this does not cancel the MIT license retroactively. MIT fork is still possible.
bogwog 3y ago
I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that I can create a fork of any MIT licensed project right now, and relicense it as GPL. I can't do that the other way around because GPL explicitly forbids it. > without an CLA or similar agreement assigning ownership, contributions retain copyright of their original author. Wouldn't that mean that any contribution without an CLA to an open source project is unlicensed? Meaning anybody using a project that appears to be MIT is actually screwed because different parts are owned by different people who can claim infringement since they never explicitly licensed it to you? EDIT: SLA->CLA :P
- bananapub 3y ago
  > I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that I can create a fork of any MIT licensed project right now, and relicense it as GPL absolutely not, you can't relicense other people's code. you can combine some MIT code with some GPL code you wrote, though, and the aggregate can be distributed under the intersection of both licenses, which is ~the GPL. the license of each bit of code is still whatever license it had originally, though.
- Tomte 3y ago
  > I can create a fork of any MIT licensed project right now, and relicense it as GPL A common misunderstanding, but no! You can incorporate the MIT project into your X-licensed project, and now have three parts you need to consider: the MIT project, your X project and your (presumably x-licensed) composition of the other two projects. It means, for example, that when distributing your composite project, downstream users do not only have to comply with X, but also with MIT (for that part). So they havbe to reproduce the MIT license (they would not need to do so if you truly relicensed the code!), and they need to distribute the copyright marks of the MIT project etc.
  - jimjag 3y ago
    The entire work can be licensed under GPL, but those parts that were MIT remain, individually, still under MIT. MIT specifically and explicitly allows for 'sublicense'ing

by donatj 3y ago

Denvercoder9 3y ago

They can't relicense contributions, but they can add new GPL-licensed contributions. That makes the whole work a derivative work in the sense of the GPL, which means the requirements of the GPL apply to all of it. Effectively this is the same as if all the contributions were relicensed under the GPL. The only significant difference is that you can still cut out a part of the code that hasn't been touched by a GPL-licensed contribution and use it under the terms of the MIT license. None of this violates the MIT license of the original contributions, as it allows you to do basically anything, including sublicensing, with the code, provided that you retain the copyright notice.

pjmlp 3y ago

They can, because MIT.

alwayslikethis 3y ago

The general understanding is you can relicense MIT to GPL, but not the other way around. MIT has no requirement that you use the same license, only that the permission and attribution notice remains.

depr 3y ago

Do you mean CLA? I said the same thing about the recent Redis change. Apparently, the old contributions are still under the old license, and new contributions will be GPL. Because the old license is MIT, those contributions can be incorporated in the new GPL version. So there the old contributions are not relicensed and there is no need for it. If the old license were GPL and they wanted to move to e.g. BUSL, then they would have to ask all the contributors because GPL doesn't allow that.

draven 3y ago
But then they will sell you a license to use the whole project including their GPL bits. It's legal, but it's kind of a bait and switch and can be perceived negatively by the community. It's similar to what was done to Akka.
rapnie 3y ago
Drew Devault forked Redis, made the fork LGPL, then got so many questions that he created a fun little licensing quiz: https://fosstodon.org/@drewdevault/112156829031615403 https://fosstodon.org/@drewdevault/112156829031615403
- Denvercoder9 3y ago
  Can anyone explain why the answer to the second question (https://fosstodon.org/@drewdevault/112156847020462949 https://fosstodon.org/@drewdevault/112156847020462949) is "no"? The MIT license grants all the rights that the GPL requires to be granted for derivative works (it is GPL-compatible). Is the problem here just that they don't distribute or offer the source code of the GPL-licensed library along with the pre-built binaries?
  - homarp 3y ago
    it is because GPL is viral https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WhatDoesCompatMean https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WhatDoesCompatMean
    - Denvercoder9 3y ago
      I'm aware of that, but I'd like to know what specifically violates the GPL in the posed scenario. Your very link states that it's okay to distribute combinations of GPL-licensed code with code licensed under another, GPL-compatible license (which MIT is).
      - panzi 3y ago
        Confuses me too. Maybe its because they didn't say that the code was also distributed and that they didn't explicitly say that they use a certain library that is under the GPL?

Starlevel004 3y ago

> You can’t just relicense contributions willy-nilly It's a good thing that the MIT licence allows sublicencing, which means that you can add a single GPL file to a project to immediately relicence it to the GPL as a combined work.

kavalg 3y ago
IANAL, but this does not cancel the MIT license retroactively. MIT fork is still possible.

bogwog 3y ago

I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that I can create a fork of any MIT licensed project right now, and relicense it as GPL. I can't do that the other way around because GPL explicitly forbids it. > without an CLA or similar agreement assigning ownership, contributions retain copyright of their original author. Wouldn't that mean that any contribution without an CLA to an open source project is unlicensed? Meaning anybody using a project that appears to be MIT is actually screwed because different parts are owned by different people who can claim infringement since they never explicitly licensed it to you? EDIT: SLA->CLA :P

bananapub 3y ago
> I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding is that I can create a fork of any MIT licensed project right now, and relicense it as GPL absolutely not, you can't relicense other people's code. you can combine some MIT code with some GPL code you wrote, though, and the aggregate can be distributed under the intersection of both licenses, which is ~the GPL. the license of each bit of code is still whatever license it had originally, though.
Tomte 3y ago
> I can create a fork of any MIT licensed project right now, and relicense it as GPL A common misunderstanding, but no! You can incorporate the MIT project into your X-licensed project, and now have three parts you need to consider: the MIT project, your X project and your (presumably x-licensed) composition of the other two projects. It means, for example, that when distributing your composite project, downstream users do not only have to comply with X, but also with MIT (for that part). So they havbe to reproduce the MIT license (they would not need to do so if you truly relicensed the code!), and they need to distribute the copyright marks of the MIT project etc.
- jimjag 3y ago
  The entire work can be licensed under GPL, but those parts that were MIT remain, individually, still under MIT. MIT specifically and explicitly allows for 'sublicense'ing