Changing the licensing terms for an application

[Karsten M. Self]

on Thu, Jun 13, 2002, Hanxue Lee (feilongquan at myrealbox.com) wrote:
> I wish to know whether I can change the licensing term of an application
> from GNU GPL to BSD or vice versa.
> 
> For example, the original progam is licensed using BSD license. I
> found out that some unscruplous developers are adding some new
> features and re-selling it without contributing back to the source
> tree. 

Note that you're largely explicitly permitting this in using the BSD
license.  Partisans of the GNU GPL will note this as a flaw of the BSD
license; partisans of BSD-style licensing note this as a key feature.
You have to decide if it's what you want.  It seems that it isn't.

> I wish to avoid this, so can I change the licensing terms from
> BSD to GPL? How about the other way round? If the licensing terms
> could be changed, is it only the original owner can change it?

Depends on the version of the BSD license.  Following the dropping of
the "advertising clause" ~1998, the UC Berkeley version of the BSD
license is compatible with the GNU GPL -- code may be licensed under
both licenses, less a "migration" and more a dual-licensing.  If
additional submissions are made under the GPL only, the work as a whole
becomes distributable only under the terms of the GPL (unless the GPLd
code is excluded).

If you are the sole author of the code, _future_ distributions of the
code can be under terms of your chosing.  Revoking prior terms of
distribution is a cloudier issue, most discussion suggests you'd create
a bunch of problems trying to do this.

If others have contributed code, your changing or amending licensing
terms may require coordination of terms with the other authors.  This is
dependent on the specific BSD license applied.

IANAL, TINLA, YADA.

Peace.

-- 
Karsten M. Self <kmself at ix.netcom.com>        http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
 What Part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
   Support the EFF, they support you:  http://www.eff.org/
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