GPL (was: .Net version of FIT)

--- Michael Feathers <[email protected]> wrote:
> One thing that I don't understand is what rights a copyright
> owner would retain under GPL....

All rights but one. As the copyright holder, you can further
redistribute it in other ways. Example: The Cygwin runtime is
distributed under the GPL (so only GPL programs can use it),
*and* under a commercial license friendlier to commercial use:
    http://www.redhat.com/software/cygwin/

>... It seems that once you've GPLed, you've essentially
> relinquished the right to copy to the community.

That's the one right you don't retain. Once you've distributed
something under the GPL, you can't retract the rights of people
who've already obtained it.

> I can easily imagine an open source project hijacked by a
> group that provides a responsive service for modifying the
> codebase. Under something like a GPL, I suppose that they
> wouldn't need the author's permission to go in a wildly
> different direction at odds with the original author's intent.

True; anyone has the right to "fork" the code. But the hijackers
can't restrict their customers rights to further redistribute
the code. (The hijackers can say, "We won't give you this code
unless you pay us one hundred billion dollars"; but they can't
also say, "And you can't give it to anyone else.") In that
sense, it's immune from non-free, non-open hijacking. The
original author can incorporate as much or as little of the
hijacker's code as desired.

The GPL:
    http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
is less than two thousand words long (not counting the preamble
and the "How to Apply These Terms" suggestion). It's well worth
reading.  --PSRC

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