The problem is that Pike used to be GPL. Now it's also MPL and LGPL. At least LGPL is less restrictive. The change of licensing was in this case a bit dubious because Roxen had NOT kept a list of all contributors and what code they had contributed (and there was never individual emails asking contributors if their code could be relicensed as far as I know). There was also no clause saying that all submitted code had its copyright transferred to Roxen.
Another smaller project with similar voes is physfs. It was licensed under LGPL. At some point it became apparent that this license was too restrictive (some Playstation 2 developer wanted to use the code bug couldn't due to the license). Also Ryan Gordon had not required all code to be signed over to him (in terms of copyright). Thus he had to ask all contributors (of which he at least had a good list of who they were and what they contributed) if a change from LGPL to a zlib-like license was ok. Despite being a small project with not all that many contributors, several didn't respond or couldn't be reached, so he had to remove code they had contributed (although I think in the end most did approve of the change). Had the copyright been signed over to Ryan to begin with, there would have been no issue here at all.
I guess my point is that keeping track of individual authors for a project this size, not to mention keeping track of which code they wrote would be a nightmare (physfs is smallish and well-separated). The only other option is to require the copyright to be signed over.
Of course, if you created a new file format and wrote a loader for it, which you also incorporated into Pike, I doubt that the non-incorporated code couldn't be used by yourself in any way you wish under any license. Only the code in the Pike CVS is actually owned by IDA. Now as it is today, this actually might not be the case (in the wording) but if it isn't, I think it should be. I'm not a laywer and haven't read the rules well enough to know (and I don't care - what I write for Pike is pretty Pike specific).
/ David Hedbor
Previous text:
2003-09-11 18:41: Subject: Re: IDA's policy on Pike contributions
On Thu, Sep 11, 2003 at 12:30:02PM -0400, Martin Nilsson (ja till euro, nej till cent) @ Pike (-) developers forum wrote:
And we don't want to be in a "SCO vs. the world" situation one day.
What is wrong if I keep the copyright but license the code under GPL/MPL/LGPL? That is the problem of SCO, btw - since they distributed Linux they cannot claim that this was illegal.
I only want to be sure that I still can use my code as I wish, where I wish and under conditions that I wish; and I want to be credited as the author if my contribution is significant. If I license the code to IDA, I give them right to do whatever they want, but I don't want to give them right to claim that this is _their own_ code. That's all.
Regards, /Al
/ Brevbäraren