Дана 26/03/02 11:18AM, Miles Rout написа:
> [...] A licence is something you distribute software under, not a
> static attribute of the software.
It is definitely not a static attribute, but it is related to the
specific work, and it describes the legality of actions upon that work.
The original author may (non-retroactively) alter the license from that
point onward at any time, regardless of the terms.
> Presuming that the patch in question is a creative work sufficiently
> original to be subject to copyright, that patch can be distributed
> under whatever licence _or licences_ the author of it chooses.
> [...]
> Here the original work does not constrain the choice of licence of
> derived works, so your patch can be whatever licence you like.
Yes, of course. However, the author(s) of the original work might
choose to not publish/host/distribute the modified versions of their
work which are licensed under different, more restrictive, licenses
(that they didn't choose for the original in the first place) on their
own website, especially when those licenses state the entire modified
work must be relicensed under that license (GNU GPL does). Given the
terms of particular licenses involved, this doesn't affect the
unmodified, original versions, nor the ability of the author of the
modified version to publish it on his own website. Like you said:
> And the other point is that nothing someone does with a patch has
> any effect on the original software or how it is licensed.
That is also what I am saying.
> But calling it "relicensing" is wrong. The modified version is just a
> work. It is a derived work of the original software, and of the patch,
> so how you may distribute it may be constrained, but as it is a work in
> its own right, when you distribute it under a particular licence you
> aren't "relicensing" it You are just licensing it.
Wikipedia[1] defines "relicensing" as modifying the license of a work
when combining it with another work, if the licenses aren't
"compatible". (This seems to be meant in the "cohabitation" sense; this
isn't "compatibility" as defined by FSF. They define it as the ability
for a license to be changed to GNU GPL.) Since the GNU GPL requires the
entire work be licensed under GNU GPL, when publishing/distributing the
work created by applying the patch licensed under it, the license of
the part of the combined modified work which comes from the original
work must be changed (relicensed) to GNU GPL in order to comply with
its terms.
So, it *is* relicensing.
[1]:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_relicensing
Received on Tue Mar 03 2026 - 09:52:08 CET