Changing GPGME's license

David Shaw dshaw@jabberwocky.com
Thu Jul 31 22:00:02 2003


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Thu, Jul 31, 2003 at 08:56:56PM +0200, Simon Josefsson wrote:
> Werner Koch <wk@gnupg.org> writes:
>=20
> > On Sun, 20 Jul 2003 21:28:50 +0200, St=C3=A9phane Corth=C3=A9sy said:
> >
> >> Hi,
> >> I'm not sure I got it right: do you mean that GPGME could be
> >> double-licensed?
> >
> > No.  It is just a one-time license change from GPL to LGPL what I am
> > thinking of.  There won't be an effective way to ever get back to the
> > GPL.
>=20
> I'm likely missing something, but the LGPL explicitly allows
> relicensing the software as GPL, by anyone who has a copy.

True, but the changing a LGPLed licence to GPL on a new version
doesn't change the licence on an already released version.  The "old"
version would still be LGPLed.

If a LGPLed version was put out there, and then later there was a
switch back to the GPL for new versions of GPGME, then all of the
updates and new features/fixes would probably be provided on the new
re-GPLed version.

Users of the LGPLed version could either stay with the frozen LGPLed
version, switch to the GPLed version, or implement the features and
fixes they need (and then make them available under the LGPL).  Sort
of like a licence-mandated code fork.

David
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.3rc2 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Key available at http://www.jabberwocky.com/david/keys.asc

iEYEARECAAYFAj8pdZgACgkQ4mZch0nhy8l2NQCgusIDLeW5WfyanpAcw04YESdl
cvYAoIS+upcNKem4e1AOMaUN/DM27FrJ
=3DXGQK
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----