Slashdot Mirror
Dispelling BSD License Misconceptions
AlanS2002 writes "Groklaw is hosting an article by Brendan Scott which looks at the misconceptions surrounding the BSD license. From the article: 'We observe that there exists a broad misconception that the BSD permits the licensing of BSD code and modifications of BSD code under closed source licenses. In this paper we put forward an argument to the effect that the terms of the BSD require BSD code and modifications to BSD code to be licensed under the terms of the BSD license. We look at some possible consequences and observe that this licensing requirement could have serious impacts on the unwary.'"
The MIT license looks like it explictly permits relicensing. Would someone more qualified in the legal art then me care to comment?
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
One tidbit seems to be ignored--this would only apply under AUSTRALIAN law, per the article.
But, if true, it might mean that the BSD is indeed "viral" in Australia!
Wonder what Microsoft might have to do about all that old BSD networking code they use if this is true?
This novel interpretation of the BSD license requires various syntax games with the license text that simply aren't supported by common sense interpretation. And yes, while common sense may not be the output of much of any area of law, contract law included, it's still got a lot of weight as input.
It's not a viral license, no matter how much anyone wants to twist their personal interpretation of it. All in all, it's pretty funny, telling the licensors how they actually intended a different outcome than what they, well, intended.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
...personally I'd rather declare any code I produce to belong to the Public Domain or just keep it entirely closed and private. The way law is makes anything else a headache. Seriously, if even lawyers can't agree on anything why does anyone in the Open Source community even bother? Personally I care more about other people being able to benefit from my code than preventing corporations from using it for profit.
SQLite is released to the public domain and it's some damn fine code.
They seem to be saying this:
1) The BSD license clause 3 says the FOLLOWING conditions must apply.
2) They wonder if "apply" means "apply" or something else, like "apple" or "penguin".
3) They note that one of the FOLLOWING conditions is the warranty.
4) They wonder if one of the PRECEDING conditions (clause 2) ought to be handled the same way as the the warranty.
In a narrowly construed legal sense they may have a point.
In a human being sense, if anyone has ever wondered why we all hate lawyers and think they are wankers, this is pretty much it.
It is, of course, impossible to create an unambigous document, and yet lawyers pretend to be able to do this, and then make a fortune out of their failures.
No one, ever, anywhere, has ever had any question as to what the BSD license means. So clearly there is a valid and correct reading that means what everyone knows it to mean. So clearly any reading that completely reverses that meaning must be making a mistake somewhere.
This post, by the way, can be interpreted as a love sonnet addressed to a musk ox, if you look at it closely enough and make up the meaning of a sufficiently large number of words, and wonder when I say, "it is, of course, impossible to create an unambigous document" if I really mean, "misey were the borogoves, and the momrath outrabe."
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Its not facinating, its more license genital tugging that OSS seems obsessed with. The argument itself is untested, weak and clearly contrary to the spirit of the BSD license which ultimately is quite liberal so even if the assumptions made in the argument were true little would actually change. Reads more like a GPL is the best license in the world scare tactic.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
So they are not relicensing the BSD licensed components. They are providing those parts of the software under the license of which they were required and they are doing all they are required to use that code by providing the license in the documentation. The power of this is that the BSD license doesn't require the source code to be released to the user (and Brendan Scott, the author of the paper, recognises this in section 7.3) so the company can keep their modifications secret.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Call a spade a spade. It's not a 'novel interpretation', it's FUD.
Someone who want all software to be 'open' only in the GPL notion is trying to spread FUD that the truely free BSD license also has the same viral restrictions. Don't buy it, don't spread it. It's FUD.
To the author of this crap 'interpretation': If you want your software under GPL, then write it that way, but don't try to spread crap about the BSD license.
Personally I care more about other people being able to benefit from my code than preventing corporations from using it for profit.
The problem comes when a company claims "ownership" of your code and then determines who benefits and under what contitions. That's what happens when you don't worry enough to make things right.
A great example of such a theft is Macsyma(tediously detailed article that's nice but misses the point), the grand-daddy of Maple, MathCAD, Mathematica and many other symbolic algebra systems. It was developed, largely at public expense by people who expected the public to be able to have it. Instead, the results were "commercialized" in the 80's. A single copy of the original code(much better history, as you would expect from a free software project) survived thanks to the efforts of Bill Schelter, a GNU Common Lisp author and one of the first to port GCC to i386. Schelter managed to convince the DOE to let him legally distribute that code ... 20 years after it had been stolen from the public. Since then, development has been speedy and it will not be long before the quality matches or exceeds current commercial packages. The next time you spend a hundred bucks on one of it's commercial derivatives, remember that you might have had a free version a decade ago.
So, before you freely give your life's effort to others, you might consider what they will really do to other people with it and chose an explicit license that suits your real tastes. The GPL is the most common choice made and there's a reason for that. The same old assholes are up to new tricks, like "trusted computing" that are designed to lock everyone but themselves out of the market. In the future, if they have their way, you will not be able to run your code on commercial hardware. Is that the kind of thing you want to support in any way?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I think your understanding of the license is basically correct, but you don't seem to be seeing the implications.
There is one point that has a huge effect on both Microsoft and Apple: redistribution in any form not explicitly allowed by the licence is prohibited. That's standard copyright law. Additionally, you can't add licensing terms that conflict with the original terms. It's unclear to me whether or not you can add any terms at all (e.g., by adding the GPL to it).
That means one of two possible things: either Apple and Microsoft are in violation of copyright because they are redistributing code that incorporates BSD code under a more restrictive non-BSD license, or the recipient of said code has the rights to the binaries under the BSD license (and can thus freely redistribute the binary!).
Those are surprising and far-reaching conclusions.
With respect to Microsoft, it could have a big impact, because they incorporate BSD code into their TCP/IP stack if I'm not mistaken. In the case of OSX, a very large amount of the code is BSD code or incorporates BSD code. In both cases, they relicense the binary code under a far more restrictive (as regards redistribution) license than the BSD license.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
Look, when I release software under a BSD-like license, my intent as the owner of the work is to do the following:
(1) Permit people to do whatever they want with the software--including relicensing the software, so long as
(2) if you use my software, you don't then plaster my name all over it as if I endorce whatever cause or crappy software you're creating, and
(3) you don't sue my ass if and when the software you downloaded from me breaks.
Basically, do what you want--just leave me out of it.
In one sense the article is correct: in imposing a new license you cannot remove the old one. But as the intent of the old license is to cover my ass and keep my name around so people know what sort of a cool dude I am, so long as the new license also covers my ass and keeps my name around so people know what sort of a cool dude I am, I don't see the problem--either from a common-sense perspective or from a legal one.
The BSD licence does not say that any modifications must also be released under the BSD licence. It does say that that a copy of the original licence, copyright notices, disclaimer, etc, must be including in any redistribution of the source or binary.
In fact, the BSD licence does not say anything about licensing any code—at all.
I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some kind of loophole. - Leo Kessler
It seems that this lawyer has not been trained in computer science because he is glossing over an important detail of the license to reach his incorrect conclusion. The BSD license says (using the author's numbering and my emphasis):
"2 Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
3 * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
4 * 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.
5 * Neither the name of the [organization] nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission."
The license requires, per clauses 2-4, that a user reproduce (a) the copyright notice, (b) the list of conditions and (c) the disclaimer of the original license. The author reads this as requiring that the entire BSD license be reproduced in any redistrubtion or use of the code. But this is only true if (a), (b) and (c) comprise the entirety of the BSD license. I argue that they do not!
The key question is, "What is the 'list of conditions' that must be reproduced?" The author incorrectly claims that [2] is part of the list of conditions that must be maintained by a user, which would create a viral mechanism that this paper describes.
It is obvious from [2]'s use of the phrase "the following conditions" and the fact that [3, 4, 5] are preceded by asterisks and use the phrase "this list of conditions" that [2] is not intended to be part of the list of conditions. The list of conditions only consists of [3, 4, 5]. Therefore, redistributors / users are not required to maintain the original grant of the license [2] in their use or redistribution of the code.
The flaw in the author's argument is that he is incorrectly including the original grant of the license [2] into the list of conditions [3, 4, 5]. The license truly only requires that users reproduce clauses [1, 3, 4, 5, 6] of the BSD license in their redistrubtions or use.
The BSD license isn't viral, don't get confused. It is the viral nature of the GPL that restricts how you can license your additions.
If you take and modify a piece of GPLed code (that you did not write in the first place), and you wish to distribute or sell the resulting source and/or binaries, you are required under the GPL to basically licence your additions under the same terms, including making your modifications available in source form. The only way around the requirement is if you contact all the authors that created the original work and get permission from all of them to operate on the source under a different license (that is, for the original authors to re-issue the same source to you under a different license). This is nearly impossible for very large GPLed projects but, of course, very easy for small projects since there are only a handful of original authors. Some projects require that submissions sign over their rights to the project to give the project the ability to change the license it is distributed under (I believe the GCC project does this, for example, and MySQL forked off a proprietary dist using the same method). Baring this permission you can only modify the code under the terms of the license.
If you take and modify a piece of BSD code you are NOT required under the BSD licence to put your additions under the same terms. You can do whatever you want with your derived work, including selling it without disclosing your modifications. All the BSD license does is prevent you from removing the BSD copyright and licensing lines from the source code, and requires you to identify in documentation that your code was derived from BSD. In particular, this means that you can add whatever conditions you like to the combined (derivative) work, as long as they are not contrary to the original BSD license. That is, you cannot remove the requirement that your documentation contain a copy of the BSD copyright notice and licence. But it certainly does not in any way require that that be the ONLY copyright notice and license pertaining to the derived work.
Any third party is welcome to take the original BSD code and do whatever they want to it under only the terms of the BSD license. But if they want to take your modified work they have to adhere to both the BSD license and your own.
Only an idiot would think otherwise. I swear, where these people get their ideas is beyond me.
It's that simple. Think of the BSD license simply as published pure science... that is the closest parallel to its intent.
-Matt