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The Apache or MIT license would permit you to continue using it for all versions up to the last commit which used that license. Any later commits under a differ

The Apache or MIT license would permit you to continue using it for all versions up to the last commit which used that license. Any later commits under a different license would not be Apache licensed and you would need to follow the new terms if using those newer versions. The new license doesn't prevent you from sharing forks of the older version which was Apache/MIT licensed.

joshka 2y ago
Kinda, it's complicated. When someone other than the owner of the repo contributes code, they own the copyright to that code. When the author changes this repo's license like this they're redistributing the external contributor's copyrighted code. The permission to do so is granted by the Apache 2.0 license and is subject to the conditions of it. Without the permission to distribute the contributed code, the author is engaged in a violation of copyright law. Note the Apache terms: > "You" (or "Your") shall mean an individual or Legal Entity exercising permissions granted by this License. This covers not just the users, but also the "author" here who exercises the permissions granted below: > 2. Grant of Copyright License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, each Contributor hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce, prepare Derivative Works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute the Work and such Derivative Works in Source or Object form. > 4. Redistribution. You may reproduce and distribute copies of the Work or Derivative Works thereof in any medium, with or without modifications, and in Source or Object form, provided that You meet the following conditions: > (a) You must give any other recipients of the Work or Derivative Works a copy of this License; and So let's interpret that. Regardless of the whatever intent to re-license the code exists in the mind of the author, in order to distribute the code which was contributed by others, the only legal means to distribute this code must comply with the requirements of the license. Technically they could remove all code contributions which were contributed by others (I've done this in the past, it's a pain to do right), or seek permission from the others to add additional grants that are not included in the Apache license here (I've seen various projects do the post-facto CLA thing for this). But that has not happened here. So (in my opinion) the github repo of the author is a currently infringing the copyright of all the other contributors. Any one of whom could enforce it or raise a DMCA take down notification on the repo. So given that we're talking about material that is in breach of copyright, it's likely that being able to enforce a license on that as a consumer is not really a thing which is possible as the conditions on what must be included bind the person distributing the material not the person receiving it.

joshka 2y ago

Kinda, it's complicated. When someone other than the owner of the repo contributes code, they own the copyright to that code. When the author changes this repo's license like this they're redistributing the external contributor's copyrighted code. The permission to do so is granted by the Apache 2.0 license and is subject to the conditions of it. Without the permission to distribute the contributed code, the author is engaged in a violation of copyright law. Note the Apache terms: > "You" (or "Your") shall mean an individual or Legal Entity exercising permissions granted by this License. This covers not just the users, but also the "author" here who exercises the permissions granted below: > 2. Grant of Copyright License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, each Contributor hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable copyright license to reproduce, prepare Derivative Works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute the Work and such Derivative Works in Source or Object form. > 4. Redistribution. You may reproduce and distribute copies of the Work or Derivative Works thereof in any medium, with or without modifications, and in Source or Object form, provided that You meet the following conditions: > (a) You must give any other recipients of the Work or Derivative Works a copy of this License; and So let's interpret that. Regardless of the whatever intent to re-license the code exists in the mind of the author, in order to distribute the code which was contributed by others, the only legal means to distribute this code must comply with the requirements of the license. Technically they could remove all code contributions which were contributed by others (I've done this in the past, it's a pain to do right), or seek permission from the others to add additional grants that are not included in the Apache license here (I've seen various projects do the post-facto CLA thing for this). But that has not happened here. So (in my opinion) the github repo of the author is a currently infringing the copyright of all the other contributors. Any one of whom could enforce it or raise a DMCA take down notification on the repo. So given that we're talking about material that is in breach of copyright, it's likely that being able to enforce a license on that as a consumer is not really a thing which is possible as the conditions on what must be included bind the person distributing the material not the person receiving it.