I have many questions and do not really know where to start

[John Cowan]

Ben Tilly scripsit:
> On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 5:32 AM, Matthew Flaschen
> <matthew.flaschen at gatech.edu> wrote:
> > John Cowan wrote:
> >> Yes, although it may be problematic to retract the rights of people who
> >> are already acting on the license.
> >
> > Also note that changing the license will be difficult if you have
> > incorporated modifications from other copyright holders.
> 
> That is not true if you're moving from a permissive license (like the
> MIT) to the GPL.  It is true if you're moving from the GPL to a
> permissive license.

Nobody actually knows whether these things are legally true, and there
is respected legal opinion that says they are not: that any co-author
can change the licensing terms.

What is certainly true is that most communities *believe* that unanimous
consent among co-authors is required to change the license, and that
attempting to do so unilaterally will cause feelings to run very high.

-- 
John Cowan   http://ccil.org/~cowan   cowan at ccil.org
'My young friend, if you do not now, immediately and instantly, pull
as hard as ever you can, it is my opinion that your acquaintance in the
large-pattern leather ulster' (and by this he meant the Crocodile) 'will
jerk you into yonder limpid stream before you can say Jack Robinson.'
        --the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake