Release comercial application's sources as GPL but with rest r iction in usage

[David Dillard]

I don't think that can happen in most realistic scenarios.


Suppose Party A writes some software and releases it in a dually licensed
manner, one open source, the other not.

Party B gets the open source version, finds a bug and fixes it, contributing
it back to some community repository.

Party A CANNOT then take that fix and then put it into their dually licensed
source base unless:

1. Party B expressly gives Party A permission to do so, either thru another
license or thru relinquishing ownership of the code (either to Party A or
into the public domain).

  or

2. The open source license Party A originally used gives them the ability to
do so.


I'm not aware of any open source license that meets #2 above.  Thus Party B
would have to relinquish ownership.



--- David  (IANAL)



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Yoo [mailto:cyoo at squiz.net] 
> Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2005 5:17 PM
> To: license-discuss at opensource.org
> Subject: RE: Release comercial application's sources as GPL 
> but with restr iction in usage
> 
> I think that accepting contibutions from others is a 
> fundamental aspect of the dual licensing model - improvements 
> are continuously made by the community (free, from the 
> original copyright holder's perspective) and are incorporated 
> into the non-open source version for sale. Provided that 
> contributions also remain available under the open source 
> licence, it's a win-win situation for both the contributor 
> and the original copyright holder.
> 
> I am curious as to the nature of the 'joint' copyright 
> assignment, as used by openoffice 
> (http://www.openoffice.org/contributing/programming.html)? 
> How does this differ from an outright copyright assignment? 
> Does it allow both the contributor and the recipient to do as 
> they wish with the contributions, without the permission of 
> the other party? 
> 
> Regards, 
> Chris.   
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Dillard [mailto:david.dillard at veritas.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, 16 February 2005 7:20 AM
> To: 'roddixon at cyberspaces.org'; 'Anderson, Kelly'; 
> license-discuss at opensource.org
> Subject: RE: Release comercial application's sources as GPL 
> but with restr iction in usage
> 
> > From: Roddixon [mailto:roddixon at cyberspaces.org]
> > Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2005 2:19 PM
> > To: David Dillard; 'Anderson, Kelly'; license-discuss at opensource.org
> > Subject: RE: Release comercial application's sources as GPL 
> but with 
> > restr iction in usage
> > 
> > To be clear, this is true regarding the release of the initial 
> > codebase.
> > As modifications of the source code are added to the 
> initial codebase, 
> > the original copyright holder may find s/he is bound by copyleft in 
> > the same way as others unless contributors assign 
> (transfer) copyright 
> > interests to the original copyright holder (when applicable).
> 
> Assuming that the original copyright holder accepts changes 
> from others, then yes.  I think the only way to use the dual 
> licensing model as the basis for a commercial enterprise is 
> for the original copyright holder to NOT accept contributions 
> from others, thus avoiding the problem you note.
> 
> 
> --- David
> 
> 
> 
>