[wp-hackers] 500 euros for WP + plugins

[Scott Merrill]

Amit Gupta wrote:
>  
> On Sat, 9 Jul 2005 "Robert Deaton" <false.hopes at gmail.com 
> <mailto:false.hopes at gmail.com>> wrote:
>  > WordPress can't really be relicensed under something non-GPL 
> compatible because it
>  > uses various bits of code from other GPL projects. Sure.. take out 
> the IXR, Magpie,
>  > the WPDB class, and maybe other bits of code, and then it could be 
> relicensed, but
>  > where would we be without all that?
> 
> No, I wasn't talking about taking out the GPLed components from WP, I 
> was merely asking that can WordPress be re-licensed under any other 
> license? Perhaps a GPL compatible license? I'm asking this because I 
> read somewhere(someplace else besides Matt's post) that when you license 
> something as GPL, you can't re-license it unless you do-away with older 
> code & write from scratch. Now I do think that this is not quite right 
> as some-one can write the next version of the software and can make it 
> GPL compatible, being a derivative work, but I'm not sure on this!!

The copyright owner is allowed to relicense his or her work whenever 
they feel like.

If Matt suddenly licensed WordPress under an Apache license, for 
example, all future releases would be restricted under the Apache terms. 
  All _previous_ releases would still be GPL licensed.

> Also, are all licenses listed at 
> http://www.opensource.org/licenses/index.php GPL Compatible or only the 
> ones mentioned at 
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses are 
> GPL Compatible?

Open Source and Free Software are very different concepts.

Only the Free Software Foundation is in position to decide which license 
are GPL compatible.

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