[alberth]

> "You don’t magically get your MIT license back by forking before the license change"

Am I understanding this correctly. If for example, 15 years you have an MIT code base with only MIT code. Then yesterday, you add a few lines of GPL code. Then today, you remove 100% of the GPL code you just previously added in order to revert back your codebase to be only MIT code ... it's no longer "MIT"? The GPL has now tainted their entire existing codebase?

[terramex]

No, in this hypothetical case you would be fine. Mimemagic case is more like 15 years ago you had a MIT codebase that contained hidden GPL-derived code. One day you are notified about that violation and relicense whole codebase to GPL, but the code that was already in the repository before has never been truly MIT - it was always violating GPL. To fix this you can either relicense whole codebase to GPL (what mimemagic chose) or remove GPL code from codebase, stop distribution of older versions and continue your project as MIT.

Going back to older version of code does not change anything as now everybody is aware of violation so you don't even have plausible deniability. You would need to fork from commit before adding GPL code, but this is impossible for mimemagic as it contained this code since day one.

[psanford]

No.