Implications for switching licenses mid-stream

[Jon Lesser]

We have all of our code contributors on board, so thankfully that's  
not a problem.

All of your responses have been helpful. Thank you!

Best,
Jon



On Apr 22, 2008, at 8:45 AM, Ben Tilly wrote:

> On Mon, Apr 21, 2008 at 11:12 PM, Arnoud Engelfriet
> <arnoud at engelfriet.net> wrote:
>> Jon Lesser wrote:
> [...]
>> And by the way, you need permission from all contributors to switch
>> to Y, but you probably knew that.
>
> Not always true!
>
> In the case of BSD to GPLv3 you don't need explicit permission from
> anyone because the BSD already grants sufficient provision.
>
> In the case of "GPLv2 or later" to GPLv3 you don't need permission for
> the same reason.
>
> In the case of GPLv2 to GPLv3 you do need some sort of permission.
> But from what I've read, you _may_ need less (at least in US law) than
> many have assumed.  See
> http://catb.org/~esr/Licensing-HOWTO.html#changing for further
> discussion.  I have no idea how that plays out internationally.  And
> you should talk with a lawyer before applying that theory to a
> specific project.
>
> Ben