News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on No, you can't take open source code back. Parent comment

Re:No, you can't take open source code back by zeroname on Thursday February 14, 2019 @09:38AM (#19162134)
It also makes the entire article worthless. Somebody who pushes an agenda isn't going to provide an unbiased assessment of the actual legal arguments. I clicked on the article expecting to hear both sides. Instead, I get all the usual pro-FOSS activist sources.

> I agree that you can't just take back source code

But your "agreement" is irrelevant! I "agree" that the GPL shouldn't be revocable, but that's also irrelevant to the question.

There are actually quite a few clauses in the GPL that do revoke the license grant, if they are not followed.

Arguments that the GPL itself is revocable are quite old and far predates the whole CoC kerfuffle:

https://lwn.net/Articles/347236/

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:No, you can't take open source code back by pexaizix on Thursday February 14, 2019 @09:42AM (#19162160)
To tell you the truth, I have always assumed that publishing code under a licence meant that that particular version of the code was under that licence and that it could never be revoked (unless the user violated it, of course). I didn't know there was a discussion around that fact.
[ Parent | on HN ]