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Re: GPL Liscensing on New Release: What Gives?
Wouldn't PT Barnum be proud!
Tony
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> From: Roland McGrath <roland@frob.com>
> > As an aside, this is different from what the FSF requires developers
> > of GNU projects to do: they require those developers to assign their
> > copyright to the FSF, preventing them from doing what I just described.
>
> This is getting somewhat far afield from the oskit's licensing issues.
>
> But to correct Godmar a little: the FSF asks authors to sign a copyright
> assignment contract transferring copyright ownership to the FSF; this
> contract includes the following clause:
>
> Upon thirty days' prior written notice, the Foundation agrees to
grant me
> non-exclusive rights to use the Program as I see fit; (and the
Foundation's
> rights shall otherwise continue unchanged).
>
> This is part of a binding contract made between the author and the Free
> Software Foundation. So the author can use the code he contributed later
> in whatever ways he chooses, free or not; he just cannot revoke the FSF's
> right to distribute the original code to others under a free license.
>
> In short, the copyright assignment contracts the FSF uses are meant to
> legally ensure the FSF's clear legal right to distribute the code under a
> GPL-like license in perpetuity, not to restrict the author's rights to
> distribute the same code under other license.
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