Re: [Gnewsense-dev] bug #39671: xxkb: fully non-free

[Sam Geeraerts]

Op Wed, 3 Sep 2014 18:43:14 +0530
schreef arnuld uttre <address@hidden>:

> I sent email to all the developers and the email to primary developer
> and copyright owner has bounced back.
> 
> I did get reply from a developer but he has mentioned he is not the
> copyright owner and he has not heard from the copyright owner from
> lasst few years but he is sure he would not object to changing license
> to newer version. Have asked him if he can put the newer license along
> with source code or do a VCS commit and announce the change in
> license.

It rarely (if ever) happens that someone who released their code under
the Artistic License 1.0 does not agree to relicense it under AL 2.0.
But only the copyright holder(s) can legally change the license (see
also [1]). It's likely that the current maintainer holds some of the
copyright, so it's great that we already have his permission. But we
need the permission of every copyright holder to be able to go through
with it.

Listen to Gervase Markham's "Licensing In The Trenches" talk [2] (00:10
- 00:16) for a good story about relicensing. The OpenGL license issue of
some years back [3] (in which gNewSense played a part) also
illustrates that such a process is not always straightforward even if
all parties agree on the basic principles.

Is there any other way that you might get a hold of the original
copyright holder?

[1] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLIncompatibleLibs
[2] http://faif.us/cast-media/FaiF_0x3E_Licensing-Trenches.ogg (67 MiB)
[3] http://archive09.linux.com/feature/148339