[OT] Must the copyright owner release GPLv3 derivative works?

David Woolley forums at david-woolley.me.uk
Sat Sep 8 22:36:48 UTC 2007


Mick Semb Wever wrote:
> 
>                                          for which it holds copyright to, 
> under the GPLv3 and a commercial license, must they release all of their 

That's confused.  If it owns the copyright, it doesn't make sense to 
licence it to itself.  If it doesn't own all the copyright, its unlikely 
that it would have access under both types of licence.

> own derivative works under the GPLv3?

For both these examples, the two licences are completely independent and 
can be treated as though the other didn't exist.

> This customer maintains copyright on module D.
> And/Or this customer keeps the source code to module D private.

This isn't the scenario described above, as the third party only has 
access under one of the licences.  It depends only on the terms of the 
non-GPL licence under which they have access.

IANAL (i.e. pay for legal advice if this is not clear from simply 
considering the nature of licensing and reading the terms of both licences).

-- 
David Woolley
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RFC1855 says there should be an address here, but, in a world of spam,
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