Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1999 01:55:44 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: dot@dotat.at (Tony Finch) Cc: tlambert@primenet.com, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: BSD XFS Port & BSD VFS Rewrite Message-ID: <199908140155.SAA24133@usr04.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <E11FSPV-0000Px-00@fanf.noc.demon.net> from "Tony Finch" at Aug 14, 99 02:15:01 am
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
> >Has anyone mentioned to them that they will be unable to incorporate > >changes made to the GPL'ed version of XFS back into the IRIX version > >of XFS, without IRIX becoming GPL'ed? > > That is not correct: if SGI only use code that they have full > ownership of in IRIX then they can distribute it separately under the > GPL without releasing the source to the rest of the OS. It's perfectly > valid to distribute software to different people under different > licences (e.g. softupdates, perl). It is correct: they will not be able to incorporate changes, which, by their nature, will be GPL, into a non-GPL product. While it's valid to distribute what you own under two different licenses, it's not going to be possible for them to incorporte improvements to the GPL'ed XFS under any terms other than the GPL, unless they make seperate arrangemenets with the authors. I defy you to grab a single line of the Linux kernel, _at random_, and attribute it to any single author who you could sign a contract with in order to use that line of code commercially. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199908140155.SAA24133>