[PD] PiDiP's legal status

Mathieu Bouchard matju at artengine.ca
Tue Jan 17 06:44:11 CET 2006


On Mon, 16 Jan 2006, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:

> PiDiP is actually GPL'ed since its based on GPL code, effectv.

It doesn't work like that. The GPL isn't some kind of virus that turns
things into GPL without the author's consent.

A conflict of licenses between GPL and something else first makes the
software non-distributable, and then the author decides to change the
license.

The GPL (or any other license) doesn't have the power to change the
license of any other software: it only incitates a change of license
indirectly. It's not the only option: e.g.:

PiDiP could keep the GPL-incompatible license by replacing all of the GPL
code by some other differently-licensed compatible non-derivative code.

PiDiP could also get a special permission from Kentaro Fukuchi and all
other relevant authors for an alternate license on EffecTV: e.g. if
EffecTV were re-released under the SIBSD or the MITX11 license, then PiDiP
wouldn't be bound by the GPL anymore and so Yves would not be anymore
forbidden to add non-free clauses.

 _ _ __ ___ _____ ________ _____________ _____________________ ...
| Mathieu Bouchard - tél:+1.514.383.3801 - http://artengine.ca/matju
| Freelance Digital Arts Engineer, Montréal QC Canada




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