Date: Sun, 07 Apr 2002 03:06:01 -0700 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@online.fr> Cc: Ian Pulsford <ianjp@optusnet.com.au>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Abuses of the BSD license? Message-ID: <3CB01A09.C86F98FC@mindspring.com> References: <200204051922.06556@silver.dt1.binity.net> <3CAE7037.801FB15F@optusnet.com.au> <3CAEA028.186ED53E@optusnet.com.au> <20020406105111.A90057@lpt.ens.fr> <3CAEDDD2.2ADA819F@mindspring.com> <20020406114505.GA2576@lpt.ens.fr> <3CAEE4A1.315CF53@mindspring.com> <20020406191209.GA3203@lpt.ens.fr> <3CAF8204.5E93CE38@mindspring.com> <20020407084801.GA4429@lpt.ens.fr>
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Rahul Siddharthan wrote:
> > > As for re-licensing under the GPL -- you'd still be obliged to put the
> > > BSD licence in there, so it would really be dual-licensing, not
> > > re-licensing.
> >
> > Not quite. A dual license can only work if you are permitted
> > to drop one ("either under the terms of A _or_ under the terms
> > of _B_"). You can never drop the BSD license terms from the
> > code, without an assignment of rights, or the permission of the
> > authors.
>
> So why can't the GNU people do the same thing you say Microsoft can do
> -- trivially modify the source (add GNU-style long command-line
> options?) or even leave it totally unmodified, include the BSD
> licence, and say "the BSD licence applies to part or all of this code,
> but we're not telling you what, you have to find out for yourself."
Because they've poison-pilled their license with the second to
last sentence of section 6, of course:
You may not impose any further restrictions on the
recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
It is the GPL, not the BSD license, which prevents GPL'ing
BSD or other supposedly "compatibly licensed" code.
> That looks, to me, like effectively dropping the BSD licence terms,
> since you don't know what they apply to; sure you can find out with
> some research, but you could have done that anyway, given just a BSD
> copyright notice and no licence. And when redistributing, you can
> just continue to bundle the BSD licence, now made meaningless by this
> "we're not telling you what pieces" disclaimer.
Wrong. Without explicit delineation of what it applies to,
you must assume it applies to everything, not that it applies
to nothing -- else why would it be there at all?
USL recognized this in their license. If you have access to a
SVR4 derived machine that was shipped after the USL vs. UCB
settlement, look at the license on the header files.
-- Terry
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