Re:MySQL man pages silently relicensed away from GPL
by dragonwriter on Tuesday June 18, 2013 @05:50PM
(#5902296)
> So who holds the copyright on these man pages? Did MySQL get copyright assignments from all contributers before Oracle bought them? If not, how do they have the authority to relicense the content?
As I recall, MySQL had a firm requirement for copyright assignment for contributions to MySQL because they dual-licensed it, using both GPL and commercial licenses, and without assignment they wouldn't have the freedom to do that without owning the copyright.
So, yeah, I would expect that they own the copyrights on everything in the man pages and can release them exclusively under closed licenses if they choose.
As I recall, MySQL had a firm requirement for copyright assignment for contributions to MySQL because they dual-licensed it, using both GPL and commercial licenses, and without assignment they wouldn't have the freedom to do that without owning the copyright.
So, yeah, I would expect that they own the copyrights on everything in the man pages and can release them exclusively under closed licenses if they choose.