Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1755406AbXFNTCP (ORCPT ); Thu, 14 Jun 2007 15:02:15 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751563AbXFNTCA (ORCPT ); Thu, 14 Jun 2007 15:02:00 -0400 Received: from pentafluge.infradead.org ([213.146.154.40]:57651 "EHLO pentafluge.infradead.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751448AbXFNTB7 (ORCPT ); Thu, 14 Jun 2007 15:01:59 -0400 Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 12:03:35 -0700 From: Greg KH To: Neshama Parhoti Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Dual-Licensing Linux Kernel with GPL V2 and GPL V3 Message-ID: <20070614190335.GA13261@kroah.com> References: <200706132304.21984.dhazelton@enter.net> <20070614112329.3645c397@the-village.bc.nu> <20070614103846.GA7902@elte.hu> <20070614182356.GA11828@kroah.com> <4f436aae0706141128y5cfc8e52nb52745dfe8820341@mail.gmail.com> <912ec82a0706141142v2a7db410x16f18df16da855c2@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <912ec82a0706141142v2a7db410x16f18df16da855c2@mail.gmail.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.15 (2007-04-06) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1189 Lines: 30 On Thu, Jun 14, 2007 at 09:42:16PM +0300, Neshama Parhoti wrote: > Forgive me for a little off-topic question but I have a difficulty > to understand a technical issue about this all. > > The Linux Kernel cannot easily switch licenses because of the > large amount of people involved in it (i.e. contributed code on which > they have copyright). > > But many of FSF's GNU projects are similar - for example GCC has > contributors > from many many companies and individuals, from which I presume there > are who might object to GPLv3. > > So how come they can so easily move to GPLv3 ? The FSF required copyright assignment to themselves in order to accept the changes from the developers. So the FSF owns the whole copyright and can change things whenever they want, to whatever license they want. This is the exact opposite of the kernel in which all of the original contributors own the copyright. Hope this helps, greg k-h - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/