On Tuesday 04 September 2007 04:50:34 James Bruce wrote:
I may be mistaken, but it has always been my understanding that, unless you
specifically waive your rights, they are automatically retained. (Under the
law in the US, at least).
Hence, a copyright holder can do such, where the license has not been acquired
by money changing hands.
(And actually, my above statement isn't rendered false by your rebuttal - it
still appears that the person I replied to believes that a copyright license
applies to the person holding the copyright in the same manner it applies to
the person receiving the item under said license. Though I will admit it if I
am wrong - publicly)
The license is a direct grant from the author. If the author so wished, he/she
could pull the license - either entirely or in part. About the only caveat is
that the author would have to publish and attempt to contact everyone who may
have acquired the item under that license to inform them of such a change -
this does make it difficult, hell, makes it nearly impossible, but it can be
done. (IANAL, but this does appear to be what the law says)
Actually, no. A purchase does automatically grant the rights inherent in
ownership - but that is a *PURCHASE*. Mere transfer of an item with no
exchange of money cannot convey those rights. As far as the 'public domain'
argument goes... That smells of a straw-man and is as different from a grant
of license as it is from a purchase. When you release something into the
public domain you are waiving *ALL* of your rights as copyright holder.
(Which, I am told, cannot be done in Germany and some other countries)
He could, but AFAICT, thirty years ago BSD was still run entirely by UC
Berkely and any copyrights that might be held are held entirely by UC Berkely
and not the individuals that contributed to such. (Whats more, a 30 year old
version of BSD doesn't meet the requirements of the AT&T agreement, so its
only legal in-so-far as it massively predates that agreement (and the lawsuit
which spawned it) :)
And yes, Linus actually could revoke the license on any copy of Linux from
before he started merging code written by other people into the code-base.
After the first time he merged another persons code he lost that unilateral
right. (He could, still, revoke the right to *his* portions of the code,
however)
I'm not talking about retro-active changes. I'm talking about the copyright
holder exercising their right to cancel said license in regards to either a
specific person, a specific group of people or everyone. Cancelling a license
is not altering the terms - it's stating "I am removing this product from
release under this license entirely".
(Though I have never said doing such is *EASY*, and I never said that doing
such would be free from people throwing lawsuits around. It's because of
those two facts that it has only rarely ever been done - even by large
companies.)
DRH
--
Dialup is like pissing through a pipette. Slow and excruciatingly painful.
-
