Evil ideas
Reinhard Müller
reinhard.mueller at bytewise.at
Thu Mar 21 09:46:03 UTC 2002
John,
you raise an important issue here.
> I was wondering - if an evil company got someone to unofficially write some
> GPL code and that person then released it to the community. Then wait say a
> year for everyone to become dependant on it. Then the evil company yanks it
> back, revokes the GPL license claiming it was illegal in the first place,
> then charges lots of money for the program.
The GPL itself answers this.
>From the section "How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs"
"...
You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your
school, if any, to sign a "copyright disclaimer" for the program, if
necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names:
Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the program
`Gnomovision' (which makes passes at compilers) written by James
Hacker.
<signature of Ty Coon>, 1 April 1989
Ty Coon, President of Vice
..."
Unfortunately, the mentioned perl monk appearently didn't read this
paragraph close enough.
Thanks,
--
Reinhard Müller Tel +43 (5577) 89877-0
BYTEWISE Software GmbH Fax +43 (5577) 89877-66
A-6890 Lustenau, Enga 2 http://www.bytewise.at
-------------------------------------------------------
Sichern Sie uns und anderen unabhängigen Entwicklern das
Überleben. Unterzeichnen Sie die Petition gegen Patente
auf Software: http://petition.eurolinux.org/index.de.html
More information about the Discussion
mailing list