[Buildbot-devel] buildbot and GPL (move to MIT?)

[Ben Hearsum]

On 18-Apr-08, at 12:06 PM, Brian Warner wrote:

>> Given this, http://buildbot.net/trac/changeset/495, I think it will
>> be staying v2. Brian is obviously authoritative here, though.
>
> Yeah, Buildbot is currently GPLv2. I've got no plans to move to GPLv3.
>
> I have had some requests, however, to move to a more liberal license,
> something like the MIT license (which is the same one that Twisted is
> distributed under).
>
> On the whole, my philosophies are captured slightly better by GPLv2,  
> so I
> tend to use it as a default for many of my projects. But I don't feel
> strongly enough about it to stick with it. There are users who are
> inconvenienced by the hassle of fighting with their internal legal
> departments over the use of GPL tools (mostly due to the lawyers being
> confused, it's not like they're trying to bundle buildbot into a  
> commercial
> product), who have told me that their company policy is that if two  
> tools are
> equal in other respects, they'll go with the one with the more liberal
> license. Apparently some people are just wired to be scared by what  
> they've
> heard about the GPL's viral nature.
>
> So I'm considering moving buildbot to the MIT license.
>
> What do people feel about that?
>
> -Brian


(I am not a contributor of a large amount of code, so take this for  
what it's worth.)

Personally, I'm partial to attribution - so more of a fan of the BSD  
License but I would be OK with this.

Question: Can you relicense Buildbot without getting permission of all  
of the contributors?

- Ben