Re: Copyright issues re Debian website

On Fri, Mar 07, 2008 at 09:58:55AM -0800, Bruce Perens wrote:
> Jimmy Kaplowitz wrote:
> >"Consolidated copyright of code also allows for the possibility of
> >relicensing the whole code base should that become desirable.
> It is definitely easier to relicense a program when you own the entire
> copyright, because you don't have to give anyone notice. But nothing
> there says it's the only possible method.

It doesn't say that consolidated copyright is the only method, true.
But, the full bit of text I quoted does say that you need the unanimous
agreement of every single contributor [i.e. copyright holder] if the
copyright is not owned by one entity. Here's the relevant bit (all-caps
words are my emphasis):

"Without aggregated copyright, EVERY SINGLE CONTRIBUTOR must be
contacted AND UNANIMITY REACHED in order to relicense a code base, or
parts of the code must be reimplemented. This is true for all but the
most permissively-licensed open source projects."

Please quote less selectively and read more closely in the future.

- Jimmy Kaplowitz
jimmy(at)spi-inc(dot)org