Date: Sun, 8 Jul 2001 20:39:53 -0500 From: Dave Uhring <duhring@charter.net> To: Joe Abley <jabley@automagic.org> Cc: Juha Saarinen <juha@saarinen.org>, Matthew Emmerton <matt@gsicomp.on.ca>, Munish Chopra <chopra@runbox.com>, "freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG" <freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: XFS (was: ReiserFS (was: JFS (was: The FreeBSD core team needs your help)))a Message-ID: <01070820395300.12819@dave> In-Reply-To: <20010708203933.U30462@buddha.home.automagic.org> References: <Pine.LNX.4.33.0107091044300.326-100000@vimfuego.saarinen.org> <3B48E76C.1050607@charter.net> <20010708203933.U30462@buddha.home.automagic.org>
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On Sunday 08 July 2001 19:39, Joe Abley wrote: > On Sun, Jul 08, 2001 at 06:06:20PM -0500, Dave Uhring wrote: > > Juha Saarinen wrote: > > >On Sun, 8 Jul 2001, Dave Uhring wrote: > > >>But SGI has released XFS under the GPL. Sun, et al, can hardly > > >> "leech" their IP due to the provisions of the GPL. > > > > > >But under the BSD license, they can. At least that's what I was > > > told, but I'm not the right person to ask about this. > > > > [bizarre font non-sequitur] > > > > Juha, if I understand the GPL correctly, and I am not a lawyer, > > there is no way that a GPL product can be converted to a BSD > > license. > > The holder of the copyright can reissue code with different licences > at will. Absolutely true. And only the owner of the copyright can do that. But in this case we are discussing using SGI's GPL'ed work and for the whole to be "infected" with a BSD license SGI, as the copyright owner, would have to modify its license, which it is unlikely to do. Otherwise, the code remains GPL, and is not encumbered with the competitive liability which the BSD license allows. In a matter such as this the GPL actually protects the IP of the copyright owner in so far as the competition's ability to use the code is concerned. If Sun or IBM or ??? wish to use the XFS code, their improvements to it will be returned to SGI and the public should they distribute that code and no competitive advantage can be gained. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
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