On Jan 18, 2006, at 3:52 AM, Mathieu Bouchard wrote:

On Tue, 17 Jan 2006, Hans-Christoph Steiner wrote:

...

Actually, it does work like that in this situation. PiDiP started with GNU GPL'ed code, therefore must remain GPL'ed. Yves could get permission from the effectv for a different license, then change the PiDiP license, but that would only affect future versions of PiDiP.

I'm looking at clause 5 of the GPL right now and it's quite perplexing. I'm quite convinced that it's not permitted by law to take a package that is not legally distributable and assume that its licensing is something else just because it's the only way out for the software to stay distributable. I'm looking at clause 4 and it would seem that "any attempt to sublicense the program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License", which is not the same as a license magically being applied to the derivative works without the consent of the author of the derivative works (who holds a copyright on the modifications made to the original works).

Maybe it's time to ask for advice from the Free Software Foundation and/or other similar organisms?

Please bring it up to the FSF if that will settle your mind. From my research, I think the issue is settled: PiDiP must be available under
the GNU GPL because of PiDiP's dependecies on PDP and effectv.

.hc

Man has survived hitherto because he was too ignorant to know how to
realize his wishes. Now that he can realize them, he must either change them, or perish. -William Carlos
Williams