On Wed, 29 Mar 2000, Feico Dillema wrote:

> Unfortunately, that's not enough. Many people have contributed to the
> code and supplied patches (under the assumption that they contributed
> to GPL-ed code). The big questions are then:
> 
> 1 Do we need all contributers permission to release the code under BSD
>   licence?
> 2 If so, are we able to track them all down.
> 3 If we don't get permission (of some), can we still separate their
>   contributions from the main code tree.

The GPL gives others the right to re-publish the code, including
patches, under the same license. If you intend to use patches to this
code that you find on the web, or entire re-distributions, then the
GPL must apply. Contributors who sent patches back to the author, on
the other hand, aren't publishers or licensors or anything (except
contributors), so they have no hold on the original author, IMHO.

The Gnu community doesn't lose anything, because the present code,
patches and all, will always and forever be available under the GPL.
Case in point, Netscape Navigator/Mozilla. It's understand that
contributions to the Gnu codebase may make it into the commercial
product, desired even. What the GPL guarantees contributors, is that
Mozilla itself, such as it is, can never be "taken away" from them.
Even if Netscape choose to stop publishing it, anyone else could.