Making things non-free again (was: ldp-es_20002103-7_i386.changes REJECTED)

[Thomas Uwe Gruettmueller <sloyment@gmx.net>]

All standard disclaimers apply! I am not a lawyer. I am not a 
Debian developer. etc.

Hi
On Thursday 31 October 2002 19:03, Henning Makholm wrote:
> Scripsit David Starner <starner@okstate.edu>
>
> > Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña wrote:
> > > Contrary to what people might think, not only can I
> > > chance the license of version X, I can change the license
> > > of version X minus 1, X minus 2, X minus 3...
> >
> > You can certainly offer it under a new license; but normally
> > you can't retract the old license.

IIRC, in Germany, an author can cease a copyright license in two 
situations:

 * If a publisher does not publish, the author can cease his
   exclusive rights, and look for another publisher. (s. §41)

 * If an author wants to stop a work from being published, e.g.
   for reasons of conscience, he can do so. However, during the
   ban, the work will be completely unpublishable. (s. §42)

I think these two points have only little relevance to free 
software. 

Maybe the first one could be used to free a non-free work.

The second one could be used to unfree things. However, it seems 
that nobody would want to do that. I can only think of the 
following situations:

 * A free software programmer suddenly turns into a free
   software hater. No gain for the author at all, just
   retribution.

 * A former FS programmer writes a non-free clean room
   implementation as a replacement for the tool that he wants to
   ban. 

cu,
Thomas
 }:o{#