Re: gEDA-dev: GPL3

[DJ Delorie <dj@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> 	Regardless of all this, it is unclear to me whether or not
> permission is needed from all the copyright owner's for such a change
> (please don't answer this unless you have an _explicit_ statement from
> the GPL or the FSF FAQ that isn't contradicted elsewhere).

Well, IANAL but the Linux Kernel has stated that they *can't* change
licenses, because it's practically impossible to contact all the
contributors and get them to agree to change.  That's why the FSF
requires a copyright assignment for all contributions to their
projects; no matter who works on it, the FSF *owns* it.  Thus, they
can change the license as needed.

In the case of the kernel, it's GPL2 - not GPL2+ - so it cannot be
distributed under the terms of GPL3 (except by coincidence).

> 	Like PCB, gEDA/gaf has a diverse amount of copyright owners,
> some of which have dropped off of the face of the 'net.

If you don't have a copyright assignment for their contributions, they
own them, not you.  Sorry.  This has nothing to do with the GPL and
everything to do with US copyright law - they wrote it, they own it,
unless it's a contracted work-for-hire or you make other legally
binding arrangements.

Just grepping for "Copyright" in all the sources, I see that gaf has
quite a list, including the FSF itself.

For example, gaf/gschem/include/x_dialog.h says:

 * Copyright (C) 2006 Dan McMahill

Thus, Dan owns that file, and Dan decides which license it uses.  If
there were *two* authors listed in the copyright, I don't know if you
need one or both of them.

OTOH, this type of confusion keeps projects from being relicensed with
a non-free license.  The kernel considers this to be a Good Thing.


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