Re: [Themis-dev] Another dev? Another code base we can use?

[<Ar...@co...>]

> It's my understanding of GPL (and I may be completely wrong) but once 
> something has been GPLed it can't be unGPLed. It can have a second 
> "compatible" license added, or if it was originally something else, GPL 
> can be added to it, but it can't go from GPL to BSD/MIT, as far as I 
> know. Personally, I'm not willing to make Themis GPL for his project's 
> sake. Open source may be open source, but GPL and MIT are a world apart 
> in my opinion, and I also have no intention of throwing out my work so 
> that I can base the project around UZI. That would hurt my ego too much, 
> and more importantly, it would feed his entirely too much.
> 
> Raymond
To add more detail to what Cian said....  if you include GPL code into your project and then distribute your project that has some of the GPL code in it, then your entire project must be GPLed -- but you already know that. :)

Anyways, the GPL cannot go back and "infect" the original code you wrote....  If, somehow, the original code you wrote can still be separated from the GPLed part, then you are free to release just your code under a different license (as long as you remove all GPL stuff).
However, and here is the twist.  If, after you made your project GPL and someone else contributed a piece of code to your project, no matter how small, under the GPL license, you would then be unable to release your code under a non-GPL license... unless you also removed every piece of GPL coded contributed by other people.
Alternatively, there is another solution.  If you happen to know every single person who contributed every single piece of code to the project, then you can get permission from all the authors to change licenses....  This actually presents an interesting scenario if ever you find a project early on that is under the GPL... there might be a chance it can be re-licensed under such conditions.

On another note, you don't have to worry about me suggesting the use of GPLed code in Themis or any Haiku app.  In fact, I prefer not to use any of the copyleft ones (like MPL, LGPL, etc...).  Although, they do not affect other code like the GPL does, I still am not too happy about their restrictions.  If you are curious, that's one of the reasons I wanted to see if it might be possible to get help with the SEE EMCAScript engine for Themis.

Kevin