Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 21:45:40 -0700 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Joe Clarke" <marcus@marcuscom.com>, "FreeBSD User Questions List" <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: BSD license question Message-ID: <002001c12157$4ea397e0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <20010809144451.R31560-100000@shumai.marcuscom.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
You really should read the BSD license - it is very simple and easy to understand. Much more so than GPL if I say so myself. The BSD License does allow you to take source and binary and relicense it under whatever more restrictive license you wish. Of course, the original code still remains out there under the BSD license - just because a later variant is under GPL does not invalidate the original BSD distribution. The $64 catch, though, is that you CANNOT delete the original BSD license from the GPL-licensed result. So the end result is that the GPL program will be under GPL but it will still contain a copy of the BSD license. So, anyone reading it that has a little better than oatmeal for brains will see that in there and realize that the code originated from a BSD distribution. If that person has something against the GPL they will no doubt go back to the original BSD distribution and work on that, instead of the "contaminated" GPLized distribution. In fact they might just take the original BSD distribution and diff it against the GPL distribution, and prepare a set of patches that are "contaminated" GPL code, which can then be applied to the BSD distribution to create the GPL result. Ultimately, putting it under GPL will NOT in this case accomplish the goal of the GPL - which is to prevent corporations and others from making proprietary modifications. Those entities will still be able to make modifications to the BSD distribution. The end result is you have simply split the distribution into 2 separate distributions - one GPL and one BSD - and these can further and further diverge from each other. However, it would seem to me that the _polite_ thing to do would be for the developers of netatalk who have a bug up their butt about GPL could simply write their stuff as a source file that's under GPL, and leave the licensing of the rest of the source files alone. I understand of course that due to the Embrace and Extend nature of GPL that the entire finished product would fall under GPL - but at any time in the future it would make it easy for a BSD person to rewrite the GPLized modules and put them into the ORIGINAL BSD distribution of netatalk, if they felt the need to have a BSD-licensed version of netatalk. Of course, politeness rarely occurs to zealots. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com >-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Joe Clarke >Sent: Thursday, August 09, 2001 11:47 AM >To: FreeBSD User Questions List >Subject: OT: BSD license question > > >I realize this is off-topic, but please help me out here. I'm a netatalk >developer. Netatalk is currently BSD-licensed code. There is a thread >on the developers list to change netatalk from BSD to GPL. Is this legal? >Can someone arbitrarily change the license of a project if they're not the >author? I don't think so. Seems to me Microsoft would have taken Linux, >said it's now BSD licensed, and used it in Windows XP ( ;-) ). Thanks for >some clarification. > >Joe Clarke > > >To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org >with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?002001c12157$4ea397e0$1401a8c0>