[Freegis-list] Lx-Viewer (DWG viewer for Linux)

[Bernhard Reiter]

On Mon, Nov 25, 2002 at 03:16:03PM +0000, Guy Edwards wrote:
> On Mon, 2002-11-25 at 10:00, Radim Blazek wrote:
The FSF's FAQ on the GNU GPL answer a couple of licensing pecularities.
	http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html


> > 3) Do you think that OpenDWG could become sometimes realy 'open', something 
> > like GPL or is it non free forever?
> 
> I'm not an expert on the OpenDWG libraries but we have had discussions
> on the developers mailing list about what would happen if the OpenDWG
> libraries suddenly disappeared for some reason.
> 
> The Lx-Viewer program is 100% GPL, the OpenDWG code is not, 


	http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WritingFSWithNFLibs
	Excerpt:

	if the libraries you need come with major
	parts of a proprietary operating system, 
	the GPL says people can link your program with them.

	If you want your program to link against a library not covered by
	that exception, you need to add your own exception, wholly outside
	of the GPL.

	Adding this exception eliminates the legal issue, but does
	nothing about the more serious problem of using a non-free library:
	your program won't be fully usable in a free environment. 


> As I understand it you can change from a restrictive license to GPL but
> going back again is the impossible part?

As the copyright holder you can issue several licenses on your code.
Once you properly licensed a specific version under the GNU GPL
you cannot revoke that rights for the users you got that software anymore.

However you can instantaniously start to license 
the same or new code differently and not hand out GNU GPL licenses anymore.
This also hold for other Free Software licenses.
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