[openbeos] Re: license question
- From: "Ryan Leavengood" <leavengood@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 17:50:17 -0400
On 7/11/07, Salvatore Benedetto <emitrax@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
when *porting* GPL code, can I distribute the new code under a different
license?
MIT for example?
I'm far from a GPL expert, but my gut feeling on this is no, you
cannot. Really in a sense this is the whole point of the GPL: making
sure when people make changes other people (and the original
developers) can still benefit.
If you were able to change the license to MIT just because you ported
the code (which in general isn't that hard), then someone else (like a
commercial company) could come along and make more changes to your
code and then choose to not release those changes. These might be
useful changes which could be integrated back into the original
version, but they would be hidden in the code of the company.
The GPL is designed to avoid this.
FYI I'm not really passionate about MIT vs GPL and all that jazz, I'm
just trying to be helpful.
Ryan
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