this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
239 points (98.8% liked)
Open Source
29773 readers
510 users here now
All about open source! Feel free to ask questions, and share news, and interesting stuff!
Useful Links
- Open Source Initiative
- Free Software Foundation
- Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Software Freedom Conservancy
- It's FOSS
- Android FOSS Apps Megathread
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to the open source ideology
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon from opensource.org, but we are not affiliated with them.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
They can't retroactively change the license, doubly so if it's an open-source license, as that would break the contractual agreement made with existing users when they accepted the license terms.
And if the previous license used allows for redistribution, then the existing users are still allowed to redistribute the software under the previous terms, which makes the previous license still valid for new users since they don't have to acquire the software from the original source and are bound to the license it originally came with.
It's a legal can of worms you don't want to open.