software llicense question

[jim mcnamara]

hi--

can the creator/programmer of software change the software license in his/her application?
it seems weird that every version you release of your software would be perpetually bound
to the same license.

i have a small program - VERY FEW maybe 5 or less people ever downloaded it. After much work on the code
and researching licenses i found one i'd like to use that is different than the first one i selected.
probably the users of the downloads have since deleted my program but maybe a copy exists
with my poorly choice of an iinitial license (i didnt understand it very well...still dont)>

my code falls under LGPL linking exception and it is not considered a derived work.
see -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGPL

also the individual licenses in any software i use are to be left alone under their own license
and it is only my code that i make a license for.

i have epl, lgpl, apache 2.0, bsd independent binary libraries i link to from my java code.
at the wikipedia, under each of those licenses it says - linking from code with a different license - yes (allowed)

i'd like to use bsd because it is easier for me to understand. i am not a lawyer.

thanks for helping with this question. i am working really hard to get this straightened out.
3rdshiftcoder

[Rob Spoor]

jim mcnamara wrote:can the creator/programmer of software change the software license in his/her application?
it seems weird that every version you release of your software would be perpetually bound
to the same license.

Any code released under a license remains released under that license. However, you can release newer versions under a new license if you want - it's the old code you can't change the license of.

When the developers of XFree86 decided to change the license, a lot of people didn't like that. They decided to take the last version released under the license they did like and fork it using the old license. The result was X.Org (check the history section).

[jim mcnamara]

hi-

thanks very much. i will have to slow down again and consider this very carefully.
i am very frustrated with myself at this point.

thanks for the great advice and help,
jim