Conspiracy Theory

[laserlight]

Well again, the GPL is perhaps deficient here. It does grant to the author the exclusive right to distribute the software under multiple licenses (a right which is never granted to any recipient) but only if the author is the copyright holder for all of the licensed work.

Eh, I think you misunderstand: the right of the author, as copyright holder, to distribute the software under any license(s) is recognised by law, not granted by the GPL. You seem to think that the GPL somehow grants rights to the copyright holder, but that cannot be, since it is the copyright holder that is making the license grant, and he/she cannot grant to himself/herself rights that he/she did not already possess.

But given that most GPL licensed apps will contain contain code from other sources, this is another right that's difficult to achieve in practise. It's not impossible - but certainly difficult.

If the program contains code from other sources, then it becomes a question of what license(s) that code is under. If you are talking about contributed code, then it is easy, even in practice: require copyright assignment (in which case you could relicense), or require a permissive license for the contribution such that you are able to dual license the program.

Oh, but now: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice/opinion.

[John E]

Eh, I think you misunderstand: the right of the author, as copyright holder, to distribute the software under any license(s) is recognised by law, not granted by the GPL

Yes, it would have been more correct to say that this right is "recognised" by the GPL, rather than "granted" by it. In other words, distributing the work under a GPL license does not deprive the copyright holder of his right to distribute it elsewhere under a different licensing arrrangement.