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Re: Why not contribute? (to GCC)
> If I have the rights to re-license software, and I re-license the
> software, why do I not have permission to enforce these rights?
Because you have the permission to re-DISTRIBUTE (not "re-LICENSE") the
software and nothing else. Note that I changed "right" to "permission".
The owner of the software (the copyright holder) has given you specific
permissions to do certain things with the software. Re-distributing it is
one of them. But you're not the OWNER of the software.
You're also not re-LICENSING the software. If I write some software and
apply the GPL to it and you get a copy, you have my permission to
redistribute that software to a third person. But the license that the
third person receives is from ME, not you. If a person you give it to
violates the GPL (e.g., by giving somebody a binary copy and refusing to
give them the sources), that person has violated a license with ME and only
*I* can persue it legally.
> Personally, this whole issue is problematic to me. I really can't see
> why I would ever sue somebody for using software that I had declared
> free.
If they made it NON-FREE! See above.