Re: [glob2-devel] Version 3 of GPL license issued yesterday

[donkyhotay]

FYI my name is kevin but admittedly I rarely use it online. I just read
the GPL FAQ a few days ago and I would recommend everyone to read it but
here is my understanding of the parts that affect us. First of all in
order for something to be placed under GPL it must BE copyrighted and
the author must state somewhere that it is copyrighted and under the
GPL. If the person just says it's under the GPL but doesn't mention that
it's copyrighted, the software can't be protected by the GPL and can
legally be "stolen" (since the copyright is the only legal way to assert
GPL rights). Now while it has never been officially stated I would
assume anyone who didn't bother to list themselves in the authors page
would fall under the catagory of not bothering to copyright their glob2
submissions and therefore we can do whatever we want with it (like put
it in our program and license it under GPL3). On the other hand, the
people who have put their names in the authors file we do need their
permission (regardless of time) since by putting their name in they are
assumed to be copyrighting their work under steph's original copyright
statements at the beginning of each source file. Probably our best
option is to get in touch with the free software foundation and ask them
for help. They're the principle maintainers of the GPL and I'll bet they
are probably getting asked similar questions by other groups of
developers in a similar situation. I would not recommend just "waiting"
to see what other groups do as there may be something specific to us we
need to know about. 



On Fri, 2007-07-06 at 13:31 +0200, Stéphane Magnenat wrote:
> > Relicensing is legal if all authors agree.
> 
> by authors I mean copyright holders.
> 
> Steph
>