[WikiEN-l] Knol - Our first major scandel

[Thomas Dalton]

2009/4/27 David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>:
> 2009/4/27  <WJhonson at aol.com>:
>> In a message dated 4/27/2009 11:12:44 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
>> saintonge at 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!)