[MUD-Dev] Diku & GPL

[J C Lawrence]

On Thu, 7 Dec 2000 00:48:49 -0500 
Jon Lambert <tychomud at ix.netcom.com> wrote:

> Richard.Woolcock at rsuk.rohde-schwarz.com wrote:
>> Jon A. Lambert wrote:
>> 
>> I think you misunderstand Patrick.  I believe what he is saying
>> is that if the Diku team choose to re-release Diku under the GPL,
>> people who are using the Diku code will be able to choose which
>> license they would rather use.
 
> Whoops!  I think I did.  Sorry Patrick.  Yes if Diku was
> re-released under GPL.  Each derivative, Circle, Merc, etc. would
> also have to re-release under GPL.

A critical point:

  While a product can be relicensed, current users of that product
  perforce have the *right* to choose which license (older or newer)
  they care to operate under.  If not, the product vendor would be
  in the position of retroactively rewriting the contract between
  themselves and their users without their users having any say in
  the matter.

While I'm sure some vendors would (briefly) love such a situation,
the potential for abuse is enourmous, which is why contract law
doesn't work that way.

(I'm now going to retreat back into my Wiki shell where regexes are
behaving quite oddly and state machines. well, aren't)

--
J C Lawrence                                       claw at kanga.nu
---------(*)                        : http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/
--=| A man is as sane as he is dangerous to his environment |=--
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