On 08/12/05, Peder Hedlund <peder@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Thu, 8 Dec 2005, Pete Leigh wrote: > > If you own the copyright on something, you can license it how > > you like - the fact that older versions have been licensed under > > GPL is irrelevant. > But can you really restrict usage of the software? Well, the way you can effectively license software - you'd have to ask a lawyer, but I think there are plenty of licensing schemes out there that say: "only for non-commercial use". Whether they would work in court, I've no real idea. > I mean, if someone has accepted to use the software under > GPL terms then, to him, it's GPL. Since GPL allows commercial > use, that should be his right. Under GPL terms, yes. If he's using a version of Linux Sampler which was released under the GPL you're quite right. But if he's accepted the LS license being talked about, it's not the GPL, it's the GPL plus an exception disallowing commercial use. A different beast. > I don't think GPL allows exceptions to the license in that something > that's GPL suddenly changes licensing terms if it's being used > commercially. The pure, original GPL doesn't allow this. But they are apparently not offering the software under the GPL, but under a GPL+commercial-exception license of their own. The developers themselves have no obligations under the GPL, because they themselves wrote the software and own the copyright. They did not license their use of it from some other party. Whether licenses that attempt to restrict the use of the thing licensed are robust enough to satisfy a court, that's a different question. - Pete.
