possible readline license problem with ghc and -package util

[John Meacham]

this is somewhat misleading, although the copyright holder may always
distribute their works under another license, they cannot retroactivly
change the license on previous releases. once something is gpl'ed it
always is. the author may also release it under other licenses, but the
gpled version is no less valid because of it. the author may also keep
future releases private but the previous GPL'ed releases can still be
built upon by the comunity. GHC (or whatever) is not in any danger of
disapearing. even if they  wanted to close it, they could not take back
the previous free version and it could become the seed for a open-source
fork.
	John

On Wed, Jun 12, 2002 at 01:00:33AM +0100, Alastair Reid wrote:
> 
> > :) The question here is, are you (plural) really trying to write
> > Free Software or just giving something away now, which will be
> > closed and hogged later?
> 
> The copyright holder(s) of a piece of software is free to change which
> license future copies are released under.  It makes no difference
> whether the license is GPL, BSD, Artistic, Microsoft EULA, or
> whatever.  (This is why the gcc team insist that all copyrights on gcc
> patches be signed over to the FSF.)
> 
> In other words, the GPL gives no more protection against free software
> becoming non-free than the BSD license.  The only defence against this
> is for the copyright owners to make a legally binding promise not to
> do so (as the FSF have done).
> 
> --
> Alastair Reid
> 
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> 

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John Meacham - California Institute of Technology, Alum. - john@foo.net
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