| Has this been tested in court? I also don't think "this is a license for anyone not the copyright holder" is accurate. The license specifically prohibits removal of the license you can't "dual license" GPL code. You can license code under GPL, and you can license the same initial code under a second license, but going forward those two pieces of code are forked. You can't then ship GPL modifications to the other license simply because you have the copyright ownership of the modifications, well, in fact you can, but that requires the GPL license to infect the other source code. You being the sole developer in all of this is irrelevant. I think this comes down to the answer of this question: Can you rescind a GPL license? If not, even as the copyright holder, then no, you as the copyright holder don't have rights over the code moving forward. That was part of the purpose and intention behind this license. |
Yes you can, and lots of very popular open source software have done so, including Mozilla, MySQL and QT. RMS also says it is fine: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/selling-exceptions.
> You being the sole developer in all of this is irrelevant.
It's the fundamental point.
If you own the copyright to project A and you own the copyright of some patches to project B then you can combine them however you like and distribute them under whatever licences you like.
GPL governs distribution. As the copyright owner you aren't "distributing" those patches to yourself, so the GPL doesn't apply.
[0] https://www-archive.mozilla.org/mpl/relicensing-faq
[1] https://www.mysql.com/about/legal/licensing/oem/
[2] https://www.qt.io/qt-licensing