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Theo de Raadt On Relicensing BSD Code
iBSD writes "KernelTrap has an interesting article in which Theo de Raadt discusses the legal implications of the recent relicensing of OpenBSD's BSD-licensed Atheros driver under the GPL. De Raadt says, 'it has been like pulling teeth since (most) Linux wireless guys and the SFLC do not wish to admit fault. I think that the Linux wireless guys should really think hard about this problem, how they look, and the legal risks they place upon the future of their source code bodies.' He stressed that the theory that BSD code can simply be relicensed to the GPL without making significant changes to the code is false, adding, 'in their zeal to get the code under their own license, some of these Linux wireless developers have broken copyright law repeatedly. But to even get to the point where they broke copyright law, they had to bypass a whole series of ethical considerations too.'"
here's the article on undeadly and and here's a synopsis from a misc post An excellent (and apparently sarcastic) quote:
Reyk can take them to court over this, but he must do it before the year 2047."but money is the God of Algiers & Mahomet their prophet." - Rich. O'Bryen June 8th 1786
I seem to recall a recent incident where the OpenBSD team was caught doing something similar. That they're reacting like scalded cats now seems to be in slightly poor taste, to put it mildly.
If Theo didn't want people copying his code and redistributing it under another license, he should have used the GPL...
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
I have a feeling that the Linux community will hesitate to admit any wrong doing here. Not that I am anti-linux or trolling on purpose. I just know that Theo has a bit of a reputation and Linux zealots being what they are... ah well. Nothing like OSS license holy wars.
My humor is probably your flamebait
For the last decade+, people have been claiming that the BSD licenses are more free than the GPL, because they effectively place no restrictions on what you can do with the code. Now we're being told that there are restrictions on what you can do with the code.
Another trolling article submitted to /. and sadly chosen too.
/. these days. /. is turning into osnews in terms of trolling stories.
Yesterday RMS, today Theo, tomorrow Jeff Jones...
Too much trolls on
Nice going, keep it up troll feeders.
-- "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration" - TAE --
When a non-lawyer (Mr. de Raadt)claims to know more about copyright law than a lawyer (Mr. Moglen). That's not my understanding of how the law works.
Could you please cut out these stories? He didn't say anything new. The Point was allready made. The mistake has long since been corrected and so on...
Its been done for over 10 years (GPL grabs of BSD style code).
i once saw with utter shock that someone took code from Darin Adler nearly 10 years ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darin_Adler
I noticed that I saw his stuff slapped with GPL viral license and then I compared to earlier nearly IDENTICAL source code files where he specifically went out of the way to put the GPL on it.
Darin wanted his code on this one utility module to be 100% free.
I guess the Linux camp has been doing this for over 10 years now. So immorality is nothing new.
Wasn't all the hard work of SCSI in BSD lifted ages and ages ago too?
So sad. I used to respect the GPl until I saw how the zealots will grab anything and call it their own and even claim copyright OWNERSHIP over code not alterred materially other than swapping out the legal license.
I think what he is trying to get at is, since the GPLers are so into the concept of 'freedom' of their license, and respecting it, why can't they offer the same level of respect to BSD license?
...
Instead, GPLers strip the license and replace it with a license that they feel is 'better', but incompatible with the BSD. If they had kept it BSD, they could use it with the GPL, and the BSD folks could still use any improvements made.
But again, no respect for the license. Following the letter of the law, true, but not the spirit. Geez, where have I heard that before
I have to admit I am a little confused. You can take BSD code and close it completely under a commercial license, why couldn't you use the GPL instead of a closed commercial license? Why is it unethical to use the GPL but not to use a totalitarian closed license?
Maybe some technical violation occurred in the credits or some such but this just sounds to me like sour grapes because they can't have the changes. They can't have the changes when the source is used in a closed commercial environment, the BSD guys maintain that as ethical so they really don't have any ground to stand on here. Nobody has violated the spirit of the BSD license which is essentially "Here it is, take it and do what you want with it, even if that means incorporating it into a product that makes you millions of dollars and completely closing the software without sharing any modifications back."
someone who writes code under BSD licence knows that this could be used for commercial projects without returning ANY source at all. one could argue that thus wirting code under BSD licence is stupid in the first place. but why do these people complain when someone uses it under GPL if they would even allow use it for bloody comercial, binary only products? this is stupid hypcriticism...
the BSD license is completely open, why would they want to hamstring it with GPL? BSD doesn't prevent you from doing anything, other than mucking with the BSD licensing, right?
why?
religous reasons?
I hope Theo tears them a new one on this one....
Making blanket statements about "the Linux guys" or "Linux" is so fucking inaccurate and stupid. The patch was carried in NO MAJOR GNU/LINUX DISTRO. Got that?! I'll put in bold and emphasis for you below so that your brain has a chance to absorb the point:
NO GNU/LINUX DISTROS CARRIED THE PATCH No GNU/Linux distros carried the patch.
Now, please, shut the fuck up.
Sincerely,
A happy OpenBSD user.
Information is meant to be free! Copyrights are for evil corporations! I should be able to get whatever I want and do whatever I want to it! Microsoft is the devil and surely behind this somehow! OSS FTW!!!!!
Did I forget anything?
I'm going to give you an "If I were them, I would have...", but in this case, it's not hollow. I've actually done this before, to positive effect. If you're going to use someone else's code under terms slightly different from what they clearly intended, I see an obvious course of action: ASK PERMISSION.
They say that it's often easier to get forgiveness than permission. This is absolutely not the case in the FOSS community. Yes, Theo is a hot-head, and he's clearly over-reacting. But at the same time, some Linux contributor didn't think very hard about the wishes of the original author of the code they borrowed. They just took it. In the FOSS community, we're not about copyright. We're about ethical sharing of ideas and the rights of both software developers and software users.
How long could it have taken to ask? "May I use your code?" "May I alter the license on your code?" "If not, is there some compromise we can reach?"
Learn some manners!
Cool, the FSF has a 'black-ops' section. I wonder what kind of training they get.
On a more serious note, IIRC the BSD-style licenses have a section that says that copyright notices have to be kept in tact. The GPL states that the receiver of the code should have the freedom to modify it, however they wish. This sounds contradictory to me, could someone with more experience please clarify this.
For the perfect anti-Unix, write an OS that thinks it knows what you're doing better than you do and let it be wrong.
So pretty much ever license seems to have spoiled brats as the "main supporters."
GPL has a hypocritical zealot who doesn't care for anything except his own skewed view (not even ideal), unless of course his main sponsor disagrees in which case his ideals aren't that important.
For BSD it seems to be likewise hypocritical but also inferiority complex inflicted individuals who can't deal with the fact that GPL is more popular.
1) The BSD licensed guys are pissed because someone took some code and locked them out of it, despite being rabidly pro the freedom to do exactly this.
2) The Linux guys are technically in the right but still taking dual licensed GPL/BSD code and locking it up is a pretty shitty thing to do.
3) Hot heads on both sides have managed to turn what should have been a quiet chat about a moderate, considered approach and with the magic described most eloquently as the PA Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory ensured that relations remain as hostile as possible.
The only conclusion can be that the idiots on both sides (Theo included) actually work for Microsoft and are puppets dancing to the compelling dark tunes of their evil and cunning masters.
The end.
Beep beep.
Certainly it is NOT okay to remove the copyright notices from BSD material, as long as there's something left in the file that's covered by the BSD license. So, don't do that. But you CAN take a BSD work, combine it with other works, and have the final result as essentially GPL'ed or proprietary. My FLOSS license slide even helps you figure out when you can do that, and when you can't.
But that only covers the legal issues. If there's an existing project that releases something under an OSS license, it's usually better to continue to use their license than to fork off another project under a new license, especially if you're not making many changes. For a lot of reasons.
LWN's article "Relicensing: what's legal and what's right" is worth a look.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
And are you a lawyer? Cause it seems like you understanding of the law is that only lawyers can claim understanding.
Law is understandable. It really is just common sense. That's why the jury is so important. When you think of the law, try to imagine what 10 average people would think, not what some ambulance chasing, paper pushing, pencil necked, money grubbing lawyer would think. Average people want the law to work so they can go on with their lives and not feel bad about their decision, average lawyer wants the law to work for them so they can become a partner and buy a new bmw.
Doctors, lawyers, scientists, politicians were all held in high esteem by past generations and usually for good reason. Now, it seems like they are all just out to make a buck.
Hows that KHTML code workig out?
I hope that the code has been of some assistance at Apple.
Seriously, whoever posted the message, do you have any specific complaint?
So it is okay for Microsoft Windows to make use of BSD code, but it is not okay GNU/Linux because GNU/Linux 'locks the code away'?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Implement the changes, compile it into a binary, slap some crazy draconian type EULA on it and distribute away....
Got Code?
In one of the previous discussions a helpful poster quoted Theo saying that he thought the relicensing was a moral issue - ie that Linux devs had taken code and made it 'less free''. This is a view I can appreciate, as FLOSS developers should be pooling efforts as much as possible. but the spirit I understand. I think it was more of a "Hey guys, you're meant to be on our side! We can't use this code anymore!". Of course, I find it hard to reconcile with the BSD license saying 'do what you want, just credit us'. I can understand his frustration though.
I thought the legality was clear cut - the code in question said [roughly] license under either BSD or GPL, and in any case saying 'follow BSD and GPL' is the same as saying 'follow the GPL' (was it Moglen that said that?).
I like OpenBSD, I've even donated, and I think Theo is a clever guy who does occasionally make some very good points. Problem is, I think he tends to assume the worst intentions in people - I don't think defusing situations is high on his agenda. Maybe if a more conciliatory tone was taken, we could find a solution that satisfies both the Linux and BSD devs.
If all you have is a grenade, pretty soon every problem looks like a foxhole -- MightyYar
"the theory that BSD code can simply be relicensed to the GPL without making significant changes to the code is false"
...you know, the '15-minutes of fame'. There is no way that a person, even slightly knowledgable about the licenses, would come up with such crap - unless for the reasons I just mentionned.
This is complete bullocks. The whole point of the BSD vs. GPL (eternal) debate is just that the former always claim it's more free (to use/distribute). In fact, with the BSD, it's completely possible (and legal) to take it and make a proprietary program/application of it. And now one would claim it can't be turned into GPL 'without changes to the code'? Where does that guy get that crap?
One has the distinct feeling TFA is one (in a row) of articles meant to be controversial and nothing else, for the sake of being in the spotlight
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
It should be open source vs. Microsoft. Meanwhile idiotic religious zealots have now fragmented the open source community and they are now fighting amongst themselves. Perfect, exactly what Microsoft wants.
What is with all this religious nonsense over BSD vs GPL? If someone wrote code under the BSD license YOU SHOULD RESPECT IT. What's the point in trying to convert it into a GPL license, besides pissing that person off and essentially wasting a whole shitload of everyone's time. Some people have philisophical disagreements over it, fine, but starting to make enemies against people who are only a hair's difference apart, when the real enemy is in the back laughing is so retarded.
You fucking idiot.s
What traditionally has happened when proprietary UNIX'en redistribute modified BSD code is that they include the BSD copyright notice, and then add their own. The users then have to obey both the restrictions imposed by the original copyright, plus the restrictions imposed by the UNIX vendor
The "correct" way for the Linux hackers would be to do the same, include the original dual license text, but make a clear notice that the derived work can only be redistributed under the GPL.
I take code from your BSD project "A" and put that code in my GPL project "B".
The code is still in your BSD project. It still has the same license. How is it any less free?
To me, the entire arguemnt stinks of msft anti-GPL fud.
I took a look at the license, and I don't see anything prohibiting anybody from taking BSD code and putting into a GPL project.
Furthermore, I don't see how doing that could conflict with the "spirit" of the wide-open BSD license.
Are BSD advocates just nut jobs? Or is this msft anti-gpl fud? Or am I missing something?
I think Theo is essentially correct. To the best of my knowledge, the ground rules are:
1. Don't touch the license header unless you make substantive changes
2. If you make substantive changes, you may amend the license header to add your copyright (but not remove existing copyrights) under the same license
3. If you make substantive changes and insist on licensing those changes under a different (but compatible!) license to the original, you may add a new license header above the existing one with your copyright (without modifying the existing header)
The initial problem was that the original license header was replaced entirely, even though no substantial changes had been made. The original license header has now been restored, but there is still an issue with a new copyright declaration having been added in the absence of substantive changes.
DNA just wants to be free...
Obviously stripping copyright is wrong and stripping out license terms is wrong in this case, if it was not allowed for, but often multiple licenses instruct you to strip out the inapplicable licenses to avoid just this sort of confusion.
OWNER = Regents of the University of California
ORGANIZATION = University of California, Berkeley
YEAR = 1998
In the original BSD license, both occurrences of the phrase "COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS" in the disclaimer read "REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS".
Here is the license template:
Copyright (c) YEAR, OWNER
All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
- Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
- 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.
- Neither the name of the nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.Quack, quack.
If Theo didn't want people copying his code and redistributing it under another license, he should have used the GPL...
I think you are missing the point, it is one of ethics not legality. The FOSS community is built upon the notion of giving back. An ethical FOSS developer would take a BSD driver, improve it, and release his/her changes under the original license. This new work is usable in Linux and he has given back to the community that the improved driver is derived from. However in this case the developers chose to engage in zealotry, to violate the FOSS spirit of giving back, and that is very insightful into their character.
Sorry, but after the RMS rants of yesterday, I find myself laughing at the BSD guys.
"BSD is more free, you can do what ever you want with it!!"
"Anyone can take BSD code and do anything they want, it is more free than GPL!!"
"Companies can take BSD code and make what ever they want, close it off if they like. We don't care, that's why we release it as BSD!!"
Now, the GPL guys take them at their word and the BSD guys get pissed off that they are making the code GPL.
Now the irony, for those ironically challenged, the BSD guys say their license is better because it is more free. The GPL guys say their license is better because it protects the intentions of the original authors and the "freedom of the code." The BSD guys are upset that their original intentions are not being honored by the GPL guys. Now, the BSD guys should fully understand the motivation of the GPL guys, to make sure what we want gets propagated on. The GPL versions and any changes to it will remain "free."
The BSD guys have "Made their big gay bed, and they must sleep gaily in it." (apologies to "Three to Tango")
Here is one reason why BSD guys would rather see BSD code taken completely proprietary than see it go GPL: when the code goes completely proprietary there is still a chance that patches will be contributed back to the original BSD project.
Consider the "stupid tax". This is the "tax" you must pay if you take BSD code, change it, and keep the changes to yourself: every time the BSD project releases a new update, you will need to sync up your custom changes to the official project. The time and effort this requires is the "stupid tax" you are paying for being "stupid" (i.e. not contributing your changes back to the project).
The hope is that after a while, companies that have been paying the stupid tax will say "this is stupid" and contribute their changes to the main project. But with a GPL fork this just won't happen.
Any time the BSD project releases an update, someone will merge the changes in to the GPL fork. And if you contribute changes to the GPL fork, of course they are in every release and you don't need to do anything. So there is no real pressure on features added to the GPL project.
With no GPL fork, you must choose between sharing with the BSD project, or "paying the stupid tax". With a GPL fork, you have a way to avoid the stupid tax and share with others, yet deny the changes to the BSD project. (If you are doing proprietary things with the BSD project, you will not of course have this option.)
And of course, it must be maddening for the BSD project guys to see the patches going in to the GPL project and know that they can't use them. If the GPL project gets a new feature that's a good idea, they must re-code the feature, just because of an incompatible license. (That's why I licensed my lf utility under BSD; I'm hoping it will become a standard part of the userland in all *NIX someday, and the thought of the BSD guys having to re-do all my work just made me sad.)
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
And it is!
The fact that somebody licensed a derivative work under the GPL in no way changes the license on Darin's code. Darin's code is still BSD and always will be, and from now into perpetuity, anybody can use Darin's code however they want, just like he'd intended.
What people can't do is use the derivative work however they want -- like, in a proprietary piece of software. But that's another issue! Some guy started with Darin's code and made something else out of it; let's call that guy "Bob." It's really just Bob's changes to Darin's code that are GPLed.
You see? Nothing the GPL people can do or have done will change the fact that anybody can get Darin's code under the BSD license.
The problem is this damn word "relicensing" we keep using. It implies that the license is somehow changed. It isn't!
I understand the desire to see your code under the license of your preference but realistically if you're getting a huge leg up (as is the case with Reyk's code for this wireless driver) why would you release your minor modifications under an incompatible license? If you believe in share and share alike give back to the original author the same way you received. It's just common courtesy when dealing with open source.
TEH OMG... you mean FOSSies are playing it fast and loose with teh code and teh ethics? SHOCKING!!!!
If you want to see the real display of "FOSSie Ethics", just look at their all-consuming jealousy of Microsoft. They have even gone so far as to make the GPL (in v3) openly hostile to any and all commerical and business considerations.
People like Stallman seek nothing less than making FOSS into it's own monopoly, using the GPL as a lever to dictate their own standards to every software company in the world. The software industry is the nail, and the GPLv3 is their hammer of choice... and MS-hating FOSSie zealots are the ones swinging the hammer.
And in the end, it's really the consumer and their ability to choose their own software which is being damaged. After all, MS doesn't own the marketplace, they are just a member of it. Nobody has managed to beat MS based on software quality: if you want an example of this, look at "plug and play". Linux doesn't have anything even close to Windows 95 quality PnP... yet the FOSSies keep trying to claim they are a viable alternative to Windows on the desktop? Puh-leeze.
The FOSSie rhetoric is that they are "all about choice", yet they do everything in their power to harm companies and consumers who DARE to choose Microsoft. We saw this with many companies who chose to use Windows Media formats for their streaming video (like the BBC), and there is always an uproar if a company chooses to design their pages for IE. So as we see, FOSSies don't care about choice, they only care about being able to dictate the choices.
So when I read an article like this, claiming that FOSSies are ignoring both legalities and ethics... I'm not surprised, at all.
No one else finds TdRs musings on ethical behavior and legality amusing?
Since my source swears to me that Apple uses the FreeBSD driver code to support the Atheros wireless network card in all the newer Intel-based Macs, I had to get Atheros' verification if this is true. Right off the bat and to my surprise, Atheros tells me they write the drivers and that it is not the FreeBSD code. I said wait: I've been told with certainty that these are the FreeBSD drivers written by Sam Leffler. Atheros went in to a bit of history and explained that they had Sam Leffler as a contractor and initially financed the MADWiFi Linux Driver and the FreeBSD drivers for Atheros wireless chipsets. Those drivers for Linux and FreeBSD took a life of their own and are independent of Atheros today and Sam Leffler is one of the primary contributors to both of those independent projects. But the Atheros driver for Mac OS X is written and supported by Atheros for their chipset client Apple computers but it uses the same data and header structures as the FreeBSD drivers to maintain compatibility with the FreeBSD userland.
Got Code?
To paraphrase you: "I didn't read what Theo wrote."
Actually, that was uncharitable. Let me offer you a better paraphrase: "I didn't bother to try to understand what Theo wrote, because I was convinced beforehand that nothing he could say could change my mind, because my opinions are not based on anything as flimsy as evidence."
Are you adequate?
OK, fine. That's one opinion, particularly valid from the PoV of a code-writer. But the PoV of a code-reader/user is very different: either the code crashes or it does not. Any change, even trivial in terms of creative effort, has enormous impact on the value of the work.
Or put another way, deRaad doesn't think debugging has enough value to be granted the rights of creating a derivative work.
I might agree adding a comma or changing a word on page XX in a novel does NOT create a derivative work. However, code is very fussy and utilitairian. Unless the code will run _exactly_ as-is, any mod is a derivative work.
People must remember that there are two cases happening in the openhal case: There is a BSD-only code released by Ryek, and there is a dual licensed code released by Sam. And Theo makes one little setence on that and go lumping legality with morality. In the Ryek case Ethics "doesn't matter" because it is a clear violation of licensing.(Unless someone pushes for "Fair Use", wich it obviously isn't). The dual license case, Theo is trolling and nitpicking on semantics of the well known, and previous known to work, case of dual licensing.
Here I thought that one of the biggest Virtues touted by BSD was that anyone could do anything with the code, including close sourcing it.
So, what's the big deal about a Linux copy that is qualitatively better than having someone gobble it up and slap it behind a proprietary label?
Am I missing something or does it seem like BSD wants it both ways?
The other half, the way I read it, is as follows: if the changes you're making to the BSD file are very small, there is a question whether the result truly qualifies as a "derived work." In that case, you really ought to not put any additional copyright and license notices on the files.
Are you adequate?
Joe could even comment the code additions/modifications he makes, just to make clear what he contributed and which license it falls under.
Then the BSD folks would know what they can't incorporate back into their code under a BSD license.
Dan
Did you actually read what he said in that case? I did. He repeatedly said, throughout the threads in question, that yes, GPLed code had been checked into the OpenBSD tree without the GPL license notice, and that it was an error. His dispute was not about the facts of the matter, but rather, the conduct of the people who pursued it; his claim that the morally correct way to handle it would have been to first shoot off a private email to the guy who made the error.
Didn't you ever learn to read, and to charitably evaluate the arguments of people you disagree with?
Are you adequate?
Theo's a fun guy. Scum sucking bottom dwelling Linux 'programmers' suck bottoms and dwell in scum.
my password really is 'stinkypants'
Yeah, Theo is younger and fitter, but Stallman has a katana in imitation of this xkcd cartoon :-).
A little lightening up would be good, frankly.
As noted in LWN, this kerfluffle seems to have been kicked off when "wireless developer Jiri Slaby posted a patch which stripped the ISC and BSD license notices from the source, replacing them with GPLv2 license text. It should be noted that this patch was not accepted into any repository anywhere and never became part of any exported Linux kernel tree. Nonetheless the BSD community exploded in a very public way. It is interesting to compare their public response to this posting with the sort of response they very loudly insisted was their due when they were found to have carried improperly relicensed GPL code in their repository for some time."
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
BTW, I am an avid Linux user, and I think that the Linux kernel developers who made the error made an honest mistake. Let us treat it as such.
Unfortunately, the more I do my own research, the more worried I am about Theo's main complaint-- that the SFLC may be giving out advice that seems questionable to me.
While IANAL, I say so based on my own understanding that it is nearly impossible to sue lawyers for malpractice and so we *all* need to develop a basic understanding of the law in areas which are relevant. Here are specific points I would make:
1) While the BSDL and related licenses clearly do not have the intent to force sharing of code, they clearly *do* have the intent to provide the downstream recipients of the original elements of that code with the rights listed in the license. So Theo is right that you cannot simply wrap the BSDL in the GPL.
This is particularly relevant to the GPL3 because it introduces potential license incompatibilities between BSDL-code and GPL3 code (see section 7 on removing additional permissions *without* asserting copyright).
2) Copyright law seems even in the US holds that nonexclusive licenses are clearly indivisible and do not automatically grant sublicense rights (a sublicense being a new license issued by a licensee). Some BSD-like licenses (like the MIT License) explicitly allow sublicensing the code and in this case, wrapping it in the GPL would be allowed. Otherwise, it seems difficult to make this case. Whether exclusive licenses are divisible is not yet a settle matter of law as far as I can tell (you have the Gardner v. Nike case which suggests that they exclusive licenses are indivisible, but that is the only case I can find).
BTW, Mr Moglen dismisses the above issue without providing any substantive argument against it.
3) Some BSD-like licenses seem to be addressed to all downstream users and do not include the right to sublicense. The ICU licnese, for example, and the X.Org licenses start out "Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files..." and does not specifically state a sublicensing right.
Thus I am not sure that the advice that these can be automatically sublicensed under the GPL is advice that is sound.
For these reasons, I have been suggesting that open source project leaders should seek unbiased legal advice from people outside the community.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
There are lots of good reasons to release code under the BSD license. For example, getting widespread use of an idea or protocol sometimes works best with BSD-style licenses. Many standards groups try to create at least "sample implementations" using BSD-licensed code, so that anyone can grab the code to put into their programs. But the BSD license isn't the be-all of licenses (nor is the GPL). I (and many others) believe the license difference is one of the main reasons the Linux kernel has completely eclipsed the *BSDs in market share, even though the *BSDs started first. If any company made a real improvement to the *BSDs, they often kept it proprietary, while any improvements to the GPL'ed Linux must not be proprietary, so the *BSDs get very little corporate help, while in the Linux kernel, companies spend real money to contribute code.
I don't want to call it "stupid", but choosing a license that doesn't even slightly meet your goals isn't a good idea. Choose your license for a project based on your goals for that project, and that may be different between different projects.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
In other words, DUAL license does not mean two distinct licenses, where one can be discarded by anyone who so chooses, rather it means that one license is built using two distinct legal texts (in this context), and where a USER can follow the rules as laid out. The only person(s) that can change that are the original authors.
The upshot of this is that once a bit of code is licensed in this fashion by referencing two legal texts to create a new license, it remains under this new license until such time that the original authors release it under different terms.
I'm not eligible to comment on the legal ramifications, but I certainly think there are moral issues in there.
If you're supporting GPL and hence software freedom, you must respect other's freedom too. There is nothing like my way of freedom is bigger than your freedom.
It *might* be ok for a corporation to lock their modifications under lock-n-key, but it's certainly NOT ok for software freedom torch bearers to do the same AND thump their chest about supporting freedom of software. Respect given is respect got! There are no two ways about it.
What was done might not be illegal (I don't know!), but it was definitely abusive and obnoxious. You can't claim the moral high ground after doing the same thing as the people you denounce. Hell even everybody's favorite enemy Microsoft didn't change the copyright on BSD derived software they use... ftp.exe still contains the BSD license.
Think again!
- mritunjai
What if it were a pie eating contest?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Mod up. Sounds like a fair comment.
From: Theo de Raadt [email blocked]
Subject: The Atheros story in much fewer words
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:57:43 -0600
I recognize that writeup about the Atheros / Linux / SFLC story is a
bit complex, so I wrote a very simple explanation to someone, and they
liked it's clarity so much that they asked me to post it for everyone.
Here it is (with a few more changes)
-----
starting premise:
you can already use the code as it is
steps taken:
1. pester developer for a year to get it under another license.
- get told no, repeatedly
2. climb over ethical fence
3. remove his license
- get caught, look a bit stupid
4. wrap his license with your own
- get caught, look really stupid
5. assert copyright under author's license, without original work
- get caught, look even more stupid
Right now the wireless linux developers -- aided by an entire team of
evidently unskilled lawyers -- are at step 5, and we don't know what
will happen next. We wait, to see what will happen.
Reyk can take them to court over this, but he must do it before the
year 2047.
http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=Theo+de+Raadt&word2=Richard+Stallman
I just fucking read licenses to see what I can do with code. Most intelligent coders aren't duplicitous fucks who expect you to hire a lawyer to know what you can do with their code after all ... they as I have common sense.
... that's the clearly stated intention and the intention of intelligent people using the license (that includes Theo, but he never lets intelligence or consistency stand in the way of a good occasion to flame somebody).
... poor taste.
* Copyright (c) ,
* All rights reserved.
*
* Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
* modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
* * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
* * 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.
* * Neither the name of the nor the
* names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products
* derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
If I do all that I can do whatever the HELL I want with code covered under it
Distribute it with another license which doesn't contradict any of that? Fair game.
Distribute it with a picture of your mom? Fair game
Is it ethical then to proclaim the more complete freedom of BSD license and then throw a fit and publicly denounce "brothers of FOSS" when they follow the license? Is it ethical to say you give others the freedom to not give back changes and when others take up on that offer you spread your diatribes everywhere? Is it ethical to say not what you mean and mean not what you say? Is it ethical to insist on every consideration and courtesy from others for similar violations and not giving any when the shoe is on the other foot? Must Theo inflict his personality on others? Whatever he is doing, it isn't very brotherly.
By the way, if it hurts too much to SEE improvements on your code but OK with improvements you can't see, then there is a simple solution: DO NOT LOOK. Don't brow Linux source tree, do talk to Linux developer or if that can't be managed insist on no Linux stuff whatever in any communication.
And why must a developer follow the original license if no law is broken? It is his/her (let's fact it, mostly his) prerogative, and he could very well be intending to rewrite the whole thing. Wasn't that the reason given for looking at Linux driver and inadvertently including GPLed code?
The BSD zealots follow Theo in lock steps and do not care for consistence or circumstances, just whatever argument the "spirit of Theo" has seized on.
The only reason OpenBSD exists is because Theo was kicked out of NetBSD for being an asshole to everyone who worked with him.
His attitude hasn't changed in over a decade. This article is further proof that his abrasiveness is detrimental to any project he's involved with.
Really. Just about every one of you. You think code grows on trees and every programmer in the world who doesn't subscribe to some crazy religeous mantra is an immoral thief. You think that some random unnamed company is somehow stealing your future if they happen to not want to contribute their changes back. In fact, you all seem to think that these companies are somehow adding such a huge improvement to code X, Y, and Z that the open source world couldn't duplicate it. You think the entire world consists of large immoral corporations and OMG WE NEED A LICENSE TO PROTECT US FROM THEM! Or what? What utter and complete nonsense.
Those of us who actually WRITE code will universally agree on the primary moral issue: You don't remove someone else's copyright, period. End of story.
-Matt
* Copyright (c) ,
* All rights reserved.
*
* Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
* modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
* * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
* * 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.
* * Neither the name of the nor the
* names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products
* derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
*
* THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY ``AS IS'' AND ANY
* EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED
* WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
* DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL BE LIABLE FOR ANY
* DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
* (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES;
* LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND
* ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
* (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS
* SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
Everything else is just being a tosser about legal vagaries.
So in other words, it is unethical to improve upon BSD code and release the improvements under the GPL? Well, I guess I'm unethical then, because I think that is fine, especially since the BSD crowd claims that this is an advantage of the BSD license compared with the GPL, and that this makes the BSD license "more free" than the GPL.
The people favoring the GPL want to protect their code from being taken proprietary, something the BSD license does not do. Which one is better, use the existing BSD software that explicitly allows this (but draws flak from the BSD crowd), or write your own GPL-only software? 'Cause I'm not going to release any software written on my spare time under a BSD license.
Software developed at my current place of work is different, since I work for a tax-funded entity (a university). The tax payers (including corporations) have already payed for it, so they should have a right to use it in any way they wish. For such cases, the BSD license is appropriate.
Jiry and Nick have placed their names as copyright holders regardless they haven't made substantial changes.
The best way to predict the future is to invent it
The BSD license allows you to make a derived work of a BSD licensed work, allows you to license your derived work under whatever terms you like, and allows the recipients of your derived work to use it insofar it contains parts from the original work. That's not being disputed.
What Theo is pointing out is that, according to the law, not all modifications count as producing a derived work, only "substantial" ones. If you make insubstantial modifications to a BSD-licensed work and release it, legally, you haven't released a new work, so you don't have a right to license anything at all. If you put your own copyright notice and license terms on this file, you're putting them on the same work as the original, which you do not have the right to.
Are you adequate?
Nothing stops a GPL project from contributing patches back to the original BSD project, under the terms of the BSD license. The problem arises when somebody self-righteously insists in submitting GPL-licensed modifications to a BSD project.
Are you adequate?
You can't remove the copyright notice. That's clear from the license text, for anyone who can read English:
The best way to predict the future is to invent it
So in other words, it is unethical to improve upon BSD code and release the improvements under the GPL? Well, I guess I'm unethical then, because I think that is fine, especially since the BSD crowd claims that this is an advantage of the BSD license compared with the GPL, and that this makes the BSD license "more free" than the GPL.
The BSD license give you the freedom to be unethical. That does not mean unethical behavior should not be called out for what it is.
The people favoring the GPL want to protect their code from being taken proprietary, something the BSD license does not do.
To take an existing BSD work, make minor changes/extensions, and deny this work to the community that you have derived from is unethical. Again, perfectly legal, but zealotry and counter to the FOSS spirit of giving back to those you build your work upon. If the amount of BSD code is minor, as when an operating system merely incorporates the BSD networking stack that is a different case. As would be a GPL'd application that incorporates just a few BSD components. However, taking a working BSD driver, making minor changes/enhancements, is very a different case.
The goal here is to keep all software free. What hes saying is that no clown can take BSD licensed (very very available) code and make it LESS available by "adapting" it and relicensing it. Thats why he mentions ethics.
What's the underlying premise of the Free Software? It's that you should share your code. Some people don't want to, so the GPL/copyleft exists to force people to do so. Sharing your code. Think about it for a moment. Relicensing *BSD software as GPL is legal but it violates the entire point of Free Software since it prevents sharing your changes back.
A lot of people bring up the issue of closed source software "stealing" BSD code. I personally don't care; that's their right.
Consider this: Jeffrey Dahmer killed 17 people. That doesn't mean it's ok for you (or Hans Resier) to kill someone. If you believe in the GPL, you (to an extent) believe that closed source software is immoral and wrong. If it's wrong for Microsoft to place restrictions on BSD code, it's wrong for the GPL to place restrictions on BSD code the fact that it's still "FREE" (for a narrow definition of FREE which is incompatible with the rest of the world) doesn't mean you're not sharing.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I think you are confusing BSD-Licensed code with public domain code. In public domain code, nobody has a copyright so there are no terms or conditions to abide by in the license.
In the BSDL, you have to reproduce the license on the code, include the copyright notice, the disclaimer of warranty, and optionally a couple of other clauses (non-endorsement and/or advertising).
You can still use the code. You can still release the code.
The argument is when one may add additional restrictions to the code that is released. In general:
1) Must one have a valid copyright to enforce on the code? If Theo is right (and I think he is) then BSDL-code is incompatible with the GPL3 at least as other components in the Corresponding Source are concerned (because you can only put the files in the Corresponding Source if they can be *relicensed* under the GPL3 *without* asserting additional copyrights).
2) What consitutes a valid copyright? In the US one must have substantial original, expressive elements in the work. Reformatting, correcting typos, etc. doesn't count. Adding a large block of code definitely does. In between, it may be a gray area.
Let me flesh out my reasons for agreeing with Theo on point 1. IANAL.
1) A sublicense is a new license agreement between the one licensee and a downstream licensee. If you sublicense my code under the GPL, the parties to the agreement are you and the downstream users. You might or might not have statutory relief (IANAL), but you would probably have tort relief. To issue a sublicense, one must either be a copyright owner or have permission from the copyright owner to create such a contract.
2) Prior to the 1976 Copyright Act, sublicenses were not seen as implied in copyright licenses of any sort. The copyright was seen to be indivisible, and so was any agreement short of a total transfer of copyrights(cf Harris). After the 1976 Copyright Act, non-exclusive licenses were still clearly indivisible (i.e. not sublicensable or transferrable by default), but there is some debate about exclusive licenses (see Gardner v. Nike where the 9th Circuit ruled that exclusive licenses were indivisable and not transferrable without the consent of the original copyright owner). Hence if a license does not have a sublicensing right attached to it, no sublicensing is possible at all from a nonexclusive license, like the BSDL.
3) Many of the BSD-like licenses are clearly addressed to all downstream recipients of the code (of course this only applies to projects that release the code). This means that you cannot remove rights simply by saying so, which makes it problematic from a GPL3 perspective (reread secton 7 again carefully). Note that this is only problematic for dependencies covered in the corresponding source definition. Copying in BSDL code would still be OK as long as the file as a whole was still a distinct work from the copied code.
So I don't think that most BSD License variants (exceptions include the MIT License) allow this sort of relicensing.
In short, with a BSD License, you are not forced to release your code, but if you do, you must pass along the same rights to the original code as were in the original BSD code. Derivative works can be under other licenses, however.
Once again, IANAL. If this matters to you, I suggest you seek competent and unbiased legal advice from a copyright attourney without an agenda relating to Free Software.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
If the code were dual-licensed under BSD and some commercial license requiring payment, would Theo claim that every copy of BSD include the offer to pay the license fee? The license that you don't accept has nothing to do with the license you do accept, which is what allows you to copy the code. Choose a license. Obey it. Not exactly rocket science.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
All BSD derived work (binary, source, etc) must be redistributable?
Quack, quack.
It makes no sense to talk about wishy-feely nice, moral, ethical behaviour.
There are two kinds of behaviour with respect to a license: Those that violate it, and those that don't.
(Just ask Tivo.)
If the people releasing code under the license don't like some of the behaviour of their users, even though it doesn't violate the license... then clearly they should change their license so that it prohibits the behaviour they don't like, instead of simply whining about it on the Internets.
I know this is really probably rudimentary, so thanks. So you're saying the right to modify includes the right to make addendum's to the license itself, thereby allowing someone to restrict redistribution so long as the original (possibly now contradictory) license remains intact? So if I were to work on a piece of BSD software for commercial use, somewhere in my license I'd have the BSD terms and possibly something stating that they applied to the original code (since my own software is proprietary)? For instance, with the Wikipedia entry then mention Microsofts use of BSD code in their network stack. Would the BSD license be included somewhere in that instance?
Quack, quack.
IANAL, but it looks like the copyright wasn't changed, another person made changes and added their copyright. The author of a derivative work is the one that made changes to the preexisting work. While they enjoy no ownership of the pre-existing work, they enjoy complete ownership over their changes and ownership of the derivative work as a whole. The author of the original gets no ownership rights whatsoever in the derivative work, only in the pre-existing work.
For instance, say a movie producer licenses a book to create a movie. The producer owns the movie, not the book's author. The producer must have a license from the book's author to use his copyrighted materials, but he can license the movie however he wishes, if allowed by the license granted by the book author. The book author has no rights to control stills from the movie for instance. Here we have an author of some code that licensed it under the BSD license. The license specifically allows others to copy, modify, and distribute, with the sole requirement that the copyright notice and permission notice appear, which they do.
The BSD license requires no licensing of derivative works under the BSD license. Here they choose to license the derivative work under the GPL, which is perfectly fine. I fail to see the problem. Microsoft could take this driver tomorrow and put it in Vista without ever making the code available or acknowledging that they got it from BSD, and charge for distributing it to all their customers. If you don't want people to be able to create derivative works and do with them as they please, then don't use BSD as your license. I fail to see how any ethical boundary has been crossed. They seem to be arguing by the fact that people can now make changes to the GPL code and that they won't be able to use those changes under the BSD license. Dude, you should be using the GPL! That's what it is designed to prevent.
Elegy For *BSD
I am a *BSD user
and I try hard to be brave.
That is a tall order
*BSD's foot is in the grave.
I tap at my toy keyboard
and whistle a happy tune
but keeping happy's so hard,
*BSD died so soon.
Each day I wake and softly sob
Nightfall finds me crying.
Not only am I a zit faced slob,
but *BSD is dying.
Maybe someone should try to be less argumentative and more polite. Because...
Liberty.
Many Many public domain materials were being re-license with various CC license also. These happen every day, every where. Especally in Wikis, which people choose a CC license for the whole site, however, some information inside were in public domain.
No, Theo is arguing that there is no derived work at all in this case. Copyright law in the US (which Theo cites) and abroad requires that changes to the original be substantial for the result to qualify as a derived work. Theo is claiming that the changes that were made to the files are not substantial, and therefore, that the files are Reyk's BSD licensed work, which only Reyk owns, and thus, only Reyk can change the terms on.
Again, this is something that can be gleaned by reading what Theo actually wrote, and understanding it.
Are you adequate?
1.) In making any additions to the overall work that they wished, which would put the combined work under the GPL and
2.) Even if they didn't have #1, the work was dual-licensed with the GPL by a previous author before the BSD folks worked on it.
That said, was it the right thing to do? Maybe not. Having taken that work from BSD, the spirit of cooperation might have best been satisfied by making the result under BSD. However, so many of us hate to see folks take our work private in proprietary software that we resist using BSD licensing. So, I can't blame the developers for this one.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
I see no reference to BSD licenses in msft's EULA. And the code is closed. So has is the BSD license not "stripped" by msft?
I suggest you re-read OpenBSD's Copyright policy.
Here is the license OpenBSD uses in its entirety, with the exception that point 3 is omitted as it was struck out by the University of California, Berkeley in 1999. In other words, it doesn't matter if it's a derived work or not because you've already given me permission to modify and redistribute it. That includes adding a new license to it, as long as I keep the original copyright text.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Everybody is arguing what it means and does not mean.
Somebody get Eglan or somebody on the phone from the FSF and ask about the issue at hand and post it here..
Please?!
You need to learn how copyright works, you're really, really ignorant. Or perhaps your very stupid, but I think it's more likely to be ignorance.
You dont understand the term "license." A license is the permission that the copyright holder extends to somebody, that gives them the right to make some specified use of the copyrighted term in question.
You can't do what you just said because you've not created a new work. You've taken the same work, to which you do not hold the copyright, and written a notice that pretends to dictate who may use it and in which way, something that you do not have the right to do. Why? Because you don't have the right to permit others to use that work, only the copyright holder. By slapping your copyright notice, in effect, you're saying that some of the file is your own original and substantial work. In this case, however, this claim would be false; nothing in that file is your work. You'd be appropriating somebody else's work.
The software is "free" because the copyright holder has given everybody the permission to use, modify and distribute it, but that permission comes from the copyright holder, not from you, because you are not the copyright holder. You only get to dictate license terms on work that you hold the copyright to; this includes substantial and/or original modifications of a work that you have obtained under a BSD license.
And no, the license doesn't say that, because this is copyright law, plain and simple. Nothing that the license says or omits allows you to break the law.
Are you adequate?
That's a good question. I don't really have an opinion. What I will say is that, if two parties have a dispute about this that they can't resole through agreement, then the decision is made by the courts.
Are you adequate?
The first line of a BSD license that is applied to anything reads, "Copyright , ."
In other words, it is a license which is first copyrighted by the author according to conventional copyright law, and then declares rights of use/distribution to individuals after that.
If GPL zealots rush to relicense code under said license because they hold the cynical belief that conventional copyright law on its' own is toothless, they are in effect committing acts of copyright violation. Of course, in the sick, twisted mind of a worshipper of Richard Stallman, the ends generally justify the means, so that would be seen as acceptable because they're putting said code under the GPL.
As distasteful as he might find it, Theo should possibly consider having a few legal public executions utilising the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. He'd probably only need to make a couple of examples, and I suspect the relicensing frenzy would cease.
You can still make the GPL'd fork pay the stupid tax. In fact you can do more than that since you can see their code.
Here is the formula:
Appoint one person in the community to review the changes, write up a report about them, etc. Discuss/debate the best way to make similar changes in the community, but don;t have the people who write the new code look at the GPL code.
This way, you will do 2 things:
1) You will probably make somewhat similar modifications, but these will be different in expressive ways.
2) You will be making it *harder* for the GPL fork to use your changes.
3) You can force them to either cleanly fork or start giving back.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
The driver is linked to the linux kernel, the linux kernel is the derived product.
Yes, but the people who receive code from you also get to choose which set of terms to abide by for whatever pieces of what you gave them were taken from the original. That's because the copyright holder of the original gave a license to everybody to use, modify and distribute the original work, as long as they abide by the terms of either license.
To say that more slowly: when you modify the original work to create a derived work, and release your derived work under the GPL only, that derived work you created has two parts:
You can choose the license for the second of these, because it is your work, and only you have the right to it until you license it to anybody else. The first, however, is still under a dual license. If I take the file that you gave me and rip out the parts that you added or modifed, I can use, modify and distribute the remaining under either the terms of the BSD or the GPL. The fact that you gave me your derived work under the terms of the GPL doesn't restrict me from using the parts that aren't yours under the terms of the BSD, because the original author gave everybody the right to do so. You only have the right to dictate license terms to the work that is yours.
The reason that ripping our the BSD license notice in a derived work of a dual-licensed file is wrong is because you are misrepresenting the license to parts of the work that are dual-licensed. You are falsely asserting that no part of that file may be used unless the terms of the GPL are met; but in fact, there are parts that may be used without meeting the terms of the GPL.
Are you adequate?
"Theo is claiming that the changes that were made to the files are not substantial, and therefore, that the files are Reyk's BSD licensed work, which only Reyk owns, and thus, only Reyk can change the terms on."
If this is true, then Theo is accusing them of doing something impossible. Obviously, they can't have done something impossible. If they can't change the terms on Reyk's work (in the sense of it being impossible for them to do so) then Theo is wrong to accuse them of it. One cannot do the impossible.
Everyone who receives Reyk's work or a derivative work of Reyk's work automatically receives a BSD license from Reyk. Nobody can change this, so accusing someone of changing this is nonsensical.
For example, if I take a dual-licensed work and remove the GPL license from the work and distribute it, you still receive a dual license to that work, from the original author. Neither the GPL nor the BSD license permit you to relicense the original work, but they both specify terms under which you can distribute the original work and create and distribute derivative works.
If Theo was complaining that removing the text of the BSD license from the file was wrong because the BSD license specifically prohibits this and the file was not dual-licensed, he would have a point. But doing this has no effect on the rights recipients of the file get.
The BSD license does *NOT* permit you to relicense the original work. A license that did that would have to be in writing in the United States.
When you receive, say, a copy of the Linux kernel, you receive a GPL license from every single author to the creative elements they authored and contributed. The distributor does not "relicense" the kernel to you. (Read GPL section 6.)
This is true of the BSD license as well. The GPL is explaining the only way a license like the BSD or GPL can work.
Isn't the whole issue here that they *removed* the copyright text, and didn't change enough for it to be called a derived work?
"strings ftp.exe | grep Regents"
Unreal. Absolutely unbelivable. I have never seen the likes of it.
All this bitching, over an isolated incident, that has already been fixed. And the only difference between the msft and linux use is that, with msft, an obscure command, certainly unknown to 99% of the population, can be used - if you know where to search and so on. Oh and the command is not native to windows. And the BSD folks have their panties all in a wad of this?
I am now convinced that BSD zealots are *much* worse than linux zealots, or even apple zealots. I doubt I will ever use anything BSD. The community seems bloody insane.
The best part is that Theo starts shouting about lawsuits, because he values comunity spirit so much, or something like that. The moment he started talking about lawsuits he completely lost a my respect. Not that he has anything to so about anyway, he is no party at all in this whole mess, yet he makes a hell of a lot of noise.
From now on I will refer to OpenBSD as BSDIAA. This attitude reminds me far more of *IAA then it does seem to relate to Open.
Now, don't get me wrong, as far as I can see there is indeed an issue to be sorted out with this driver, and there is reason to complain about certain things. But being right does not exclude someone from being a asshole. Theo might be partly right, he sure is a total asshole. And it's not even his code which is involved...
Why is Theo complaining over this? The BSDL allows you to distribute code under another license as long as you give credit to the author who wrote it. If Theo thinks that Linux developers are all zealots with no "moral" sympathy, then he shouldn't have used the BSDL in the first place. I sound overly critical here, but the BSDL is very liberal in what you can do with the code.
Really, on a topic like this we need a +1 Flamebait moderation.
If you want something done right, ...
No. You can't just put in lines of GPLed code and suddenly the net effect is GPL.
When you add code under a different license, there is an obligation to make it clear where the borders are.
This obligation has been often ignored. That does not make the obligation go away.
Otherwise, the dual licensing bit is nonsense.
If the guy who offered dual license wants to allow his contributions to be distributed under either alone, he does not have the authority to strip the copyright notice from source which contains contributions from those who have not said such a thing was allowed.
The only solution is to carefully annotate which lines are under which license. Otherwise, it becomes a game of chicken, to see which author(s) can stare the other(s) down. (And even with the annotation, I have trouble seeing the purpose of the dual license idea in this case. I do understand the necessity of the dual license for Perl, but that's a different question entirely.)
Since keeping the file under BSD does not prevent the file from being linked or #included with GPLed code, I really don't see the purpose of the dual license, unless it is specifically to initiate a game of chicken.
joudanzuki
not have been, but other files have apparently been published.
v.3 s. 5 (c) "... This License gives no permission to license the work in any other way, but it does not invalidate such permission if you have separately received it."
Original authors have authority to give such permission.
So the GPL does not allow people to do what the BSD copyright does not allow, unless said people are the original authors of the BSD copyrighted material.
(How long will it take for this idea to penetrate certain heads?)
SquigBSD is dead.
If there really is a need, you can build the community.
If there really isn't a need, maybe what you are worried about is not what you think it is.
In particular, if Theo didn't have a strong personality, openBSD wouldn't be worth polishing or protecting.
Maybe openBSD is good today, but tomorrow something will come up that needs someone with the technical insight and the personal drive to get it done. So, say we somehow replace Theo. Is the replacement going to have a strong enough personality to get the job done? How about the technical skill. How about the interest?
By the way, Theo is right to go after this problem. Mixing licenses is a really bad idea, and so is changing licenses without permission from all the original authors.
Well, changing licenses without permission is illegal, immoral, bad for business, and frowned on in courts, therefore, mixing licenses in a single file is a just plain bad idea. It could well undo the entire legal basis of the GPL community. (Which is the irony of the argument here.)
Not the undo GPL so much as the community.
So, yeah, Theo is right. Once again.
If you want a more business-friendly openBSD, network, get a few good engineers and maybe some business types too, and fork it. If it really is an idea whose time has come, you can make it happen.
just need the original authors' permission.
But mixing licenses really is not a good idea. Keep the license of each source file.
You can link BSD copyrighted files with GPLed files, no problem.
The BSD license (which some of the files in question are exclusively licensed under, before anybody brings out the "dual license" answer) has, as part of its terms, a requirement to reproduce the license notice in a source distribution of a derived work. Removing the license notice, thus, violates the license.
Even if there wasn't that clause, if you deliberately change the license notice of the work, you are certainly misrepresenting the license that you and your recipients have to that code. That is, at the very least, sketchy.
Are you adequate?
The BSD license doesn't give you permission to break the law. Yes, the license does give you permission to modify and distribute it as long as you don't remove the copyright lines. However, some ways of doing so are illegal. For example, slapping your own copyright and license notices on a work you did not modify.
Are you adequate?
Inclusion of the BSD license notice doesn't mean that your work falls under the GPL. The way you handle this is like the Linux developers in this story have, following the advice of Mr. Moglen: in your overall license notice, you mention that your work is copyright you and licensed under the GPL, but that it is derived from a work that's copyright the author, who licenses it under the terms that you then proceed to reproduce.
This conveys the situation precisely: there is some content in this file that you don't own, and the rights that the author grants to others are the following, as the author requires you to communicate to anybody you give their source code to.
Why does it work this way? Because the copyright holders who release their owned works under the BSD license want everybody who receives source code to be informed of the terms under which they can use that source code. That's what the obligatory reproduction of license notice accomplishes.
Are you adequate?
""The BSD license (which some of the files in question are exclusively licensed under, before anybody brings out the "dual license" answer) has, as part of its terms, a requirement to reproduce the license notice in a source distribution of a derived work. Removing the license notice, thus, violates the license.""
I agree. If Theo had accused them of a notice violation he would be right. But that's not what Theo said. RTFA. He accuses them of affecting recipient's substantive rights to the original work, which is impossible.
""Even if there wasn't that clause, if you deliberately change the license notice of the work, you are certainly misrepresenting the license that you and your recipients have to that code. That is, at the very least, sketchy.""
If that were true, there could be no dual-licensed works. Any time you removed one license, you would be misrepresenting the rights recipients have to those elements in the work that are in the original. (Since the recipients still get both licenses from the original author and you cannot stop that.)
"If you release your stuff under a license that allows something, doing so, by definition, makes that something "right"."
I'll keep that in mind next time we have a Tivo discussion.
"If you do believe that some things that can be done with your code are not "right", then you release under a license that specifically forbids those things."
As pointed out elsewhere copyright makes plain what the problem is. It's not the BSDers fault that there are so many slashlawyers out there that don't understand.
You just need to make it clear that there is work in the files that you are distributing that is not yours, and that the holder of the copyright on that work license it under the terms in question. You don't need to distribute the original files.
Really, what the terms force you to do is to communicate to the people who receive your derived work's source that, whatever license you chose for your work, there is an original work that it's based on, and that it's available under the terms of the BSD license; this is why you are required to reproduce those terms. You don't have to tell your recipients which parts are yours and which are from the original work--in fact, if you modify somebody else's code extensively, it's difficult in general to decide which parts belong to who.
Are you adequate?
That is not really accurate. A GPL program may contain sections which can be extracted and distributed under their original licenses, if those sections are identifiable. Section 2 of GPL v2:
One interpretation of that is that GPL licensed source code may contain identifiable sections inherited from BSD licensed source code, and those sections may be extracted and used under their original BSD license, even though you received the whole under the GPL.
This does not mean "only Bob's changes" are GPL'd. It means those identifiable sections which are unchanged from Darin's BSD code (or perhaps changed in trivial ways) may be extracted, if they can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves. Which you can argue they always are, as they were copied verbatim from another work, Darin's BSD code.
This is also another reason why it is not acceptable to remove the BSD license statement and identify those sections which may be extracted and distributed under it. Doing so fails to inform the recipient of rights they have with respect to those sections, even under the GPL.
You're funny. You conveniently omitted the rest of the paragraph of GPL2 you quoted. So, let's finish our reading, shall we:
GPL2: "But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based
on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of
this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the
entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it."
So as you see, the Linux kernel is a work distributed as a whole as a single monolithic program. So, again, all portions of it must be under the GPL. Otherwise, you violate the GPL.
The rest of the paragraph does not mean what you think it means.
All portions are under the GPL prior to extracting identifiable independent sections. It is the GPL itself which grants you permission to extract those sections under their original license. Therefore you are not violating the GPL when you do that - it is a permission granted by the GPL.
It is not a contradiction to say the whole work is covered by the GPL, and at the same time you can extract identifiable sections of it under their original license - precisely because that is one of the permissions granted explicitly by the GPL.
Only when they are extracted and made separate, as identifiable independent sections, do you have the option of using the original license (determining that is part of "identifiable"). The GPL continues to apply to those sections when they are part of the whole GPL'd work: that's what "But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole..." means.
Using the Linux kernel as an example: when you give me a compiled kernel, you must give me the source for that kernel (or equivalent, as per GPL). The GPL requires that you give me _all_ the source, including for those parts of the kernel which have a BSD license on the source file, or even those which have identifiable sections of BSD code. That's what "But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole..." means. It's to make sure you must give me the _whole_ source code. It's to prevent you from keeping some bits to yourself just because they were copied verbatim from BSD, for example; it makes the GPL stronger.
But at the same time, after you give me that Linux source, if I find a file in it which has the BSD license only, then I can use that file under the BSD license. It is in identifiably independent section.
See why section 2 has to have both parts of that paragraph? The bit I quoted grants you the right to extract identifiable independent sections under their original license. And the bit you quoted makes sure you have to give me those sections, despite their weaker license, when you distribute the compiled binary containing them as part of a GPL'd whole. Otherwise people might try to use the first bit as a loophole to avoid giving out the whole source to a GPL'd binary.
Please spare me such long posts. I could rephrase your posts to two sentences.
You repeatedly fail to acknowledge two facts:
1) As the Linux kernel is a single monolithic program distributed as a whole, all portions of it must be distributed under the GPL.
2) If you don't own copyright in a BSDL-ed code you can't relicense it wihtout consent of the onwners (e.g. you can't release such portions under the GPL -- can NOT, period.)
If you connect the two facts above, logic will tell you that no portions of the Linux kernel can be under the BSDL (unless you own the copyright in the BSDL-ed portions or unless you have consent of the owners).
You spew such utter nonsense, I'm not going to bother engaging further. I didn't disagree with your 1); I never said the GPL doesn't apply to the whole program so your reply is nonsense; 2) is irrelevant; we're talking about what the GPL means, not what the other license means, and besides we're talking about the license of a derived work of BSDL-non-advertising-clause, not unchanged work, which plainly can be co-licensed with in another license, it is done every day in Linux and GNU code and proprietary products.
Relicencing public domain isn't legal, you can only licence the stuff which is newly made. The law is very clear on this, and such violations are referred to as plagerism.
>I think you are missing the point, it is one of ethics not legality. The FOSS community is built upon the notion of giving back.
Exactly! And THIS, boys and girls, is precisely why people should use the GPL instead of the BSD license.
Welcome to planet earth! Yes, some people are unethical! Most of them do proprietary shit and you can't do anything about it when they use BSD code and most of the time you never even learn about it. Some of them do Free Software and at least, then you know about it and you can call them out.
BUT, if you want to share your stuff, keep it that way and avoid all the trouble then just license your stuff under the GPL, assign the copyright to the FSF and let their team of lawyers crack down on all those unethical people that would try to abuse your code.
It's as simple as that.
So I think the problem is that we're thinking about code as "having" a license. It doesn't. Code is distributed under a license. There is nothing to stop the copyright-holder from distributing his code under the GPL on Monday, the BSD license on Tuesday, and under a closed-source license on Wednesday.
The recipient of the code is bound by the terms of whatever license he received the code under. In the case of programs distributed online, the recipient can, at any time, download the code under whatever distribution he likes.
So long as the recipient meets the terms of the license he receives the code under, everything is fine. He can require whatever he wants of other people so long as he meets those obligations.
So:
You write,
GPL REQUIRES that ALL portions of a program distributed under the GPL are under the GPL....and, yes, that's true. But this does not imply:
You CAN'T have a GPL program where portions are under the BSD, unless you own the copyright in the BSD portions....because, in fact, you can do whatever you like with code so long as you meet the terms of the license you received it under.
So what does the BSD license require?
You must (1) display the copyright of the original author somewhere, (2) display a message disclaiming the original author of any liability, (3) not use the name of the original author without written permission, and (4) include conditions 1, 2, 3, and 4 in your redistribution.
If you received code under th BSD license, does redistributing it under the GPL meet those terms?
Thus all requirements are fulfilled. So you see? It's perfectly legal to distribute code you received under the BSD license under the GPL.
The only other question is whether it's ethical. And it is: Because, if the general public has access to BSD(Darin) and GPL(Darin+Bob), then, effectively, Darin's code is still BSD-ed and it is only Bob's code which is only available under the more-restrictive GPL.
Make sense?
I think everybody is getting the causal chains backwards: Sure, the GPL has more requirements than the BSD license, but it doesn't undo the original distribution of the software under the BSD license; it's not like people who received the code under the BSD license all of a sudden have to conform to the GPL!
You spew such utter nonsense
You do. You even don't know what I've been talking about.
which plainly can be co-licensed with in another license
Not under the GPL. Under the GPL all portions must be under the GPL. Get it, ffs. Read the fucking text of the GPL finally.
they liked it's clarity
"its".
This is certainly true, but what Theo doesn't seem to understand is that NOBODY CHANGED THE TERMS. They simply changed the *notice*.
If you place a work under a dual license, somebody can obtain the right to modify that work and distribute those modification from *either* license. Neither license requires them to retain the other license's *NOTICE*.
That is, when you offer a work under the GPL, whether among other licenses or not, you grant people the right to remove anything from that file that they want to, other than the GPL itself. Why? Because this is what the GPL *says*.
Note that this has no effect on anyone's actual rights to use the file. It just means you *can* remove the notice. Why? Because the GPL says so.
I use Microsoft because it is the most familiar software company, that is known to use BSD code. I could have used Apple which is known to be based completely on BSD, or any of the UNIX vendors since Unix contains a lot of BSD code. There could be countless applications out there that make use of BSD code, you'd never know it. It's not fear-mongering, I fail to see how what I wrote has any effect of that sort. You fail to address my point at all, but what you say tends to support it. Having BSD code in Linux will not destroy BSD either (it hasn't yet). The BSD license specifically allows the use of the code for derivative works as it seems to have been in this case. The code wasn't stolen, the author apparently things that since Linux is open-source as well that the changes should be licensed under the BSD license. That is not required.