2009/4/27 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
2009/4/27 WJhonson@aol.com:
In a message dated 4/27/2009 11:12:44 AM Pacific Daylight Time, saintonge@telus.net writes:
Yes, and, absent any agreement to the contrary, any one of those same authors may grant a free licence.>>
I'm very suspicious of this claim. If I and seven other own a piece of property, I alone cannot sell it to a prospective buyer. The same would hold of copyright. Although each owner has a copyright, a single owner cannot grant away the entire right to a third party.
It also doesn't sound right from the practices for free software - where relicensing is a massive pain in the backside because of the need to get agreement from all contributors. Hence the "or later" language recommended for the GPL - and the GFDL, hence a mere vote on relicensing being possible.
Free software is usually a series of derivative works rather than a work of joint authorship. It doesn't make much sense, but that's how I understand it to work. (IANAL and when the law is as nonsensical as this, I don't intend to become one!)