Bradley M. Kuhn: The SFConservancy's new explanation was refuted 5 hours after it was published:
Yes they can, greg.
The GPL v2, is a bare license. It is not a contract. It lacks consideration between the licensee and the grantor.
(IE: They didn't pay you, Greg, a thing. YOU, Greg, simply have chosen to bestow a benefit upon them where they suffer no detriment and you, in fact, gain no bargained-for benefit)
As a bare license, (read: property license), the standard rules regarding the alienation of property apply.
Therein: a gratuitous license is revocable at the will of the grantor.
The licensee then may ATTEMPT, as an affirmative defense against your as-of-right action to claim promissory estoppel in state court, and "keep you to your word". However you made no such promise disclaiming your right to rescind the license.
Remeber: There is no utterance disclaiming this right within the GPL version 2. Linus, furthermore, has chosen both to exclude the "or any later version" codicil, to reject the GPL version 3, AND to publicly savage GPL version 3 (he surely has his reasons, perhaps this is one of them, left unstated). (GPLv3 which has such promises listed (not to say that they would be effective against the grantor, but it is an attempt at the least)).
The Software Freedom Conservancy has attempted to mis-construe clause 4 of the GPL version 2 as a "no-revocation by grantor" clause.
However, reading said clause, using plain construction, leads a reasonable person to understand that said clause is speaking specifically about the situation where an upstream licensee loses their permission under the terms due to a violation of the terms; in that case the down-stream licensee does not in-turn also lose their permission under the terms.
Additionally, clause 0 makes it crystal clear that "You" is defined as the licensee, not the grantor. Another issue the SFConservancy's public service announcement chooses to ignore.
Thirdly, the SFConservancy banks on the ignorance of both the public and the developers regarding property alienation. A license does not impinge the rights of the party granting the license in a quid-pro-quo manner vis a vis the licensee's taking. A license merely grants permission, extended from the grantor, to the licensee, regarding the article of property that is being impinged. A license is NOT a full nor is it a permanent alienation of the article(property) in question. The impinged property, being under a non bargained-for temporary grant, can be taken back into the sole dominion of the owner - at his election to do so.
Now as to the 9th circuit appellate court's decision in Jacobsen v. Katzer . While the court waxes eloquently about opensource licenses, even mentioning the word "consideration" in it's long dicta, when it comes time to make the binding decision the court found that the lower (district) court was in _ERROR_ regarding the application of contract-law principals to the Artistic License, regarding the case, and instructed the lower court to instead construe said license as a Copyright License.
The SFConservancy, and Bruce Perens have chosen to:
1) Rely on the dicta. (non-binding - "some things could be contracts - opensource is great")
2) Ignore the actual ruling. (Binding - Copyright License - Not Contract)
3) Ignore that this case was about the AL, not the GPLv2
4) Ignore the existence of different jurisdictions.
(Why file in the roll-the-dice 9th district if you can file in a district that has personal-juristicion over the defendant and is much more consistent in it's rulings?)
5) Ignore all established law regard property licensing, contract formation, meeting of the minds, what consideration is etc.
Which is not surprising considering the desire of people like Bruce Perens is to rob MEN of EVERY benefit of their Labour and every speck of happiness in life and to transfer those benefits to WOMEN and those who support women.
(This is why people who are like Bruce Perens, the SFConservancy menbers, and the CoC supporters, banned men from taking female children as brides: in contrivance to the law of YHWH (Devarim chapter 22 - - verse 28 (na'ar (LXX: padia)), and continue to uphold that ban world-wide, and seek to destroy ALL cultures that do no bend to their will.... who are not idolators of Women)
Look, you may love your users, you may love the people who edit your code in their home or office; but the fact of the matter is...
They have done nothing for you, they have promised nothing to you. They CANNOT hold YOU.
