Public domain mistake?

[daniel wallace]

Under Utah law, the elements of promissory estoppel are:

(1) The promisee acted with prudence and in reasonable
    reliance on a promise made by the promisor;
    
(2) the promisor knew that the promisee had relied on
the promise which the promisor should reasonably expect
to induce action or forbearance on the part of the promisee
or a third person;

(3) the promisor was aware of all material facts; and
 
(4) the promisee relied on the promise and the reliance
resulted in a loss to the promisee.

--- J.R. Simplot Co. v. Sales King Int'l, Inc., 17 P.3d 1100,
Utah 2000)
 
In the citation above, I was thinking of the GPL, but it seems
it would apply to open source licenses generally.
 
If there exists a mistaken presumption of law (not material fact)
which preempts or voids an open source license agreement and
the source code has been widely distributed under that license,
the copyrighted code permissions would exist in the public domain
for all practical purpose.
 
Anyone who could show they had invested time and effort in
reliance on promised copyright permissions could claim
promissory estoppel to continue developing and expanding projects
into the future.

RMS would be rather disappointed. Microsoft would be happy.
   

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