When to evaluate dual licenses (was: license categories, was: I'm not supposed to use the ECL v2?)

[John Cowan]

Wilson, Andrew scripsit:

> This is indeed the crux of the argument.  For GPL licenses with
> additional permissions, or indeed for the general case of dual
> licensing, the distributor is far from irrelevant.  The
> distributor may remove permissions.  The distributor may choose
> which license of the two granted by the original developer applies
> to code as-distributed.  

I don't think that can be right.  If Alice licenses under the GPL
(never mind the version for now) to Bob, and Bob distributes either
verbatim or unmodified version to Carol, Carol gets a license *from Alice*
(in the latter case, as to the unmodified version).  That's why the GPL
doesn't do sublicensing; it's not necessary.

-- 
Eric Raymond is the Margaret Mead               John Cowan
of the Open Source movement.                    cowan at ccil.org
        --Bruce Perens,                         http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
          some years ago