> As an interesting question, can the AUTHOR of code that was
> released under GPL ever change the license terms?  As in "I
> want to make this completely PD now", or perhaps "I made a big
> set of improvements and I think I can sell it now as proprietary
> code"?  The latter seems reasonably doable, assuming that the
> basis of the improved code all belongs to the author (doesn't
> contain any fed-back improvements from others.)  The former
> seems more problematic...

The author has and retains full copyright so he can do whatever he
wants, except 'revoking' the already given license. The enforcing of
(L)GPL and similar licenses *depend* on the fact that the author has the
copyright: the GPL is just an permit, given by the author, to use the
code under certain conditions. Outside those conditions the authors
copyright forbids you to use the code.

So IMHO if a (L)GPL will ever be in court it will be introduced by the
user of the code, who will try to argue that he is within the license.
The author will just excercise his copyright and leave it up to the user
to prove he acted within the exception (the (L)GPL).

Wouter van Ooijen

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Van Ooijen Technische Informatica: www.voti.nl
consultancy, development, PICmicro products

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