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Date:      Thu, 7 Sep 2000 13:10:41 -0700
From:      R Joseph Wright <rjoseph@mammalia.org>
To:        freebsd-questions <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org>
Subject:   Re: BSD license questions
Message-ID:  <20000907131041.B21037@mammalia.org>
In-Reply-To: <20000907125755.G18862@fw.wintelcom.net>; from bright@wintelcom.net on Thu, Sep 07, 2000 at 12:57:55PM -0700
References:  <20000907115433.A19971@mammalia.org> <20000907125755.G18862@fw.wintelcom.net>

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And Alfred Perlstein spoke:
> * R Joseph Wright <rjoseph@mammalia.org> [000907 11:54] wrote:
> > Does the BSD license make it so that, even if a proprietary (binary only)
> > piece of software is derived from BSD, that software must be freely
> > distributable by anyone?  That is the impression I get by reading this section 
> > of the license:
> > 
> > Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
> > modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
> > are met:
> > 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
> >    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
> > 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
> >    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
> >    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
> > 
> > How can a company, like BSDI for example, charge for single user/multi user 
> > licenses for their software if the BSD license allows one to make copies?
> 
> Because it only affects one level.  The source will forever be
> 'tainted' with the copyright notice but that's all, it doesn't
> state that the code must be released under the same license, just
> that it must retain the notice in the source and a notice of
> recognition with the docs and/or other materials provided with the
> code.
> 
> Basically, if BSDi was using my code, it would be sufficient for
> them to just put a copy of my license clause somewhere in a list
> of credits given with thier documentation, they would then be
> free to copy or relicense the code in binary format as they saw
> fit. 
> 
> -- 
> -Alfred Perlstein - [bright@wintelcom.net|alfred@freebsd.org]
> "I have the heart of a child; I keep it in a jar on my desk."
 
Thanks, that clears it up. 

Joseph


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