I would depend greatly upon the SF terms. For example, if the SF terms include granting SF "a license to use, redistribute under SF's choice of license, etc.", then SF could fork and close even a GPL'ed product because the license THEY received it under (the theoretical SF TOS) allow them to do so. Again, I haven't sifted over the SF terms, but such a thing is definitely conceivable. D At 12:22 PM -0400 7/2/01, Christopher A. Woodfield wrote:
I'm presuming we're talking about BSD-style licenses here - with the GPL, AFAIK, the code cannot be "closed" once it's open, as any derivitive works must also be released under the GPL.
-C
More than one nominally open-source project has switched to a commercial codebase by changing it's licensing terms for a new release, and allowing people to do whatever they want (including forking a different branch) from the last public code release under open license. One example familiar to most of those here would be GateD.
-- --------------------------- Christopher A. Woodfield rekoil@semihuman.com
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-- +---------------------+-----------------------------------------+ | dredd@megacity.org | "Conan! What is best in life?" | | Derek J. Balling | "To crush your enemies, see them | | | driven before you, and to hear the | | | lamentation of their women!" | +---------------------+-----------------------------------------+