linux-kernel - Re: Dual-Licensing Linux Kernel with GPL V2 and GPL V3

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Date:	Thu, 14 Jun 2007 21:49:18 -0400
From:	Rob Landley <rob@...dley.net>
To:	Carlo Wood <carlo@...noe.com>
Cc:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Alexandre Oliva <aoliva@...hat.com>,
	Adrian Bunk <bunk@...sta.de>, Valdis.Kletnieks@...edu,
	Daniel Hazelton <dhazelton@...er.net>,
	Alan Cox <alan@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>, Greg KH <greg@...ah.com>,
	debian developer <debiandev@...il.com>, david@...g.hm,
	Tarkan Erimer <tarkan@...one.net.tr>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>, mingo@...e.hu
Subject: Re: Dual-Licensing Linux Kernel with GPL V2 and GPL V3

On Thursday 14 June 2007 19:18:12 Carlo Wood wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 14, 2007 at 01:09:46PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> > I'm the original author, and I selected the GPLv2 for Linux.
>
> [...]
>
> > I'm not going to bother discussing this any more. You don't seem to
> > respect my right to choose the license for my own code.
>
> This is the main reason I dislike GPLwhatever: there is no notion
> of "orginal author". You might have written 99% of the code, that
> doesn't matter. You have no rights whatsoever once you release
> something under the GPL (no more than ANYOne else).

You mean if the original author gets hit by a bus and their estate gets sold 
to SCO they can't revoke our rights to the code?  How is this a down side?

And you do have more rights than anyone else: as the copyright holder you can 
issue other licenses, and you have standing to sue to enforce the code.  (If 
nobody else has a copyright on the code, they don't have standing to sue to 
enforce the license terms.)

(Right now, nobody EXCEPT the FSF has the right to sue somebody to enforce the 
license terms on something like gcc.  Do you find that a comforting thought?)

Rob 
-- 
"One of my most productive days was throwing away 1000 lines of code."
  - Ken Thompson.
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