this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2023
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F-Droid
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F-Droid is an installable catalogue of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) applications for the Android platform. The client makes it easy to browse, install, and keep track of updates on your device.
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I dunno much about these licenses but is it possible the new owners could nullify the GPL rights? Like "no you can no longer fork this code that you could previously"?
Just trying to figure out exactly what their motive is here...
(IANAL)
Since the software is already distributed under the terms of the GPLv3 (which guarantees irrevocable rights) there is no way to forbid any distribution of the current version of the software.
It is however possible to distribute future works under a different license, but only if you aren't bound by the GPL yourself. This would be the case if you wrote the code yourself or all contributors grant you the right to do so (eg. using a Contributor License Agreement).
There are clever ways to split software via different abstractions that allow to avoid some license features from affecting future developments too. That is to add new closed source features without relicensing the existing codebase.
Once someone exists publicly as code with an attached valid license it cannot be retroactively removed the right to use it. So only new versions could have different licenses or something.