[openssl-dev] License change agreement

[James Bottomley]

On Fri, 2017-03-24 at 10:06 +0100, Otto Moerbeek wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 09:40:16AM +0100, Kurt Roeckx wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 08:36:02AM +0100, Otto Moerbeek wrote:
> > > On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 08:21:49AM +0100, Marcus Meissner wrote:
> > > 
> > > > On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 07:48:58AM +0100, Otto Moerbeek wrote:
> > > > > On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 04:11:48AM +0000, Blumenthal, Uri -
> > > > > 0553 - MITLL wrote:
> > > > > 
> > > > > > Apache license is fine for me, while GPL could be
> > > > > > problematic. Incompatibility with GPLv2 is not a problem
> > > > > > for us. 
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > If it is a problem for somebody - feel free to explain the
> > > > > > details. Though I think the decision has been made, and the
> > > > > > majority is OK with it. 
> > > > > 
> > > > > I like to mention that any license change cannot be made 
> > > > > based on a majority vote or any other method other than 
> > > > > getting each author (or its legal representative) to 
> > > > > *explicitly* allow the change. The method of "nothing heard 
> > > > > equals consent" is not valid in any jurisdiction I know of.
> > > > > 
> > > > > While I'm not a contributor (I think I only sent in a small 
> > > > > diff years ago), I would like to stress that the planned 
> > > > > relicensing procedure is not legal and can be challenged in
> > > > > court.
> > > > 
> > > > Well, emails were sent yesterday out to _all_ contributors for
> > > > ack/deny the change.
> > > 
> > > Read the last line of the mail, it says the no reactions equals
> > > consent. That is the illegal part.
> > 
> > The legal advice we got said that we should do our best to contact
> > people. If we contacted them, they had the possibility to say no.
> > We will give them time and go over all people that didn't reply to
> > try to reach them.
> > 
> > But if they don't reply, as said, we will assume they have no
> > problem with the license change. If at some later point in time
> > they do come forward and say no, we will deal with that at that
> > time.
> > 
> > 
> > Kurt
> 
> Probably illegal and definitely immoral, in my opinion. Copyright law
> exists to protect authors from these kind of practises.

I think you misunderstand the legal situation.  Provided notice is
sufficiently widely distributed and a reasonable period is allowed for
objections it will become an estoppel issue after the licence is
changed, which means anyone trying to object after the fact of the
change will have to get a court order based on irreperable harm and
show a good faith reason for not being able to object in the time
period allowed.  In the US, this sort of notice plus period for
objection is standard for quite a few suits and the range of things
which qualify as "good faith reason" are correspondingly very limited.

James