Adaptive Public License

[TW]

Hello,

I came across the Adaptive Public License[1] and have some question
concerning point 5.:

5. VERSIONS OF THE LICENSE.

    5.1. NEW VERSIONS.

    The Initial Contributor may publish revised and/or new versions of
the License from time to time. Each version will be given a
distinguishing version number.

    5.2. EFFECT OF NEW VERSIONS.

    Once the Licensed Work or any portion thereof has been published
by Initial Contributor under a particular version of the License,
Recipient may choose to continue to use it under the terms of that
version. However, if a Recipient chooses to use the Licensed Work
under the terms of any subsequent version of the License published by
the Initial Contributor, then from the date of making this choice, the
Recipient must comply with the terms of that subsequent version with
respect to all further reproduction, preparation of derivative works,
public display of, public performance of, distribution and
sublicensing by the Recipient in connection with the Licensed Work. No
one other than the Initial Contributor has the right to modify the
terms applicable to the Licensed Work


The Initial Contributor holds the copyright to the Initial Work, so he
is free to relicense the Initial Work as he likes anyway, right?  So
what does this section mean?  Does it mean something similar to the
GPL section that says, the FSF may publish revised versions of the
GPL, and any GPLed work may be used/distributed/modified under the
revised version, only that the Initial Contributor takes the role of
the license revisor instead of the FSF?  Wouldn't this give the
Initial Contributor a lot of control over Subsequent Works, even if
most of the work has been done by others after his Initial
Contribution?  Could a revised/new version of the License be a
completely different license like the GPL or a so called "Shared
Source" license?  Would any Person be allowed to use any Subsequent
Works that *predate* the revision of the License under the revised
License?

I hope someone can help me by clarifying!

Thomas W.


[1] http://www.opensource.org/licenses/apl-1.0