Slashdot Mirror
Software Freedom Law Center vs Theo de Raadt
An anonymous reader writes "In a recent public posting to the Linux Kernel mailing list the founder of the Software Freedom Law Center, Eben Moglen, lashed back at OpenBSD creator Theo de Raadt without actually mentioning his name. 'What has happened is that people who do not have full possession of the facts and have no legal expertise — people whom from the very beginning we have been trying to help — have made irresponsible charges and threatened lawsuits, thus slowing down our efforts to help them.' Moglen pointed out that they have and continue to help all open source projects, including OpenBSD, but the process takes time. 'The required work has been made more arduous because some people have chosen not to cooperate in good faith. But we will complete the work as soon as we can, and we will follow the community's practice of complete publication, so everyone can see all the evidence.'"
I'm a software developer, and I don't always write open-source code. I've written plenty of OS code, contributing to PHP, GCJ, SDL etc. and I GPL'd my geolocation website, but I also write commercial code.
It can be hard to see a perfectly good piece of code, that does exactly what you want, and then have to go and re-implement it yourself, but that's what the GPL requires, and that's what I do. At the moment, I'm drawing over 1000 tiles for a CIV-2 type game, because the 'freeland' tiles are GPL, and having to put the amount of work in to duplicate it that I am doing, I completely understand why.
I think that if anyone relicenced any of my OS code under their own, more restrictive (to pluck an example out of the air: GPL rather than BSD) licence, I would be incensed. It remains to be seen if this has happened within Linux, and if it has, hard questions are going to require very good answers..
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
What we really need is the clarification of the legal consequences of dual-licensing something. If it is indeed legal to strip out one of the licenses of dual-licensed code and continue development under only that license, then all we need to do is state this fact clearly in some place where people usually look when considering licensing issues. This way anyone who releases dual-licensed code will be aware that his code might not keep them both and will be able to decide in advance if that is a good thing.
> Eben Moglen, lashed back at OpenBSD creator Theo de Raadt without actually mentioning his name.
:)
Whereas an explicit attack would have been way too common to be featured as news
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
If you're a university, teaching computer science and developing software, you may well want to return value to the taxpayer; to publish software that can be integrated by commercial corporations (the Oracles and Microsofts of this world) and hobbyists alike. And service-provision corporations like Novell and RedHat.
That's what BSD is for.
I'm an anarchist you insensitive clod!
I would suggest to Theo that if he wants those GPL slackers to give back to the BSD community and not run roughshod over the BSD license that he add a simple provision that forces the miscreants to give back their improvements.
In fact, in the interest of sharing hard work freely with others, I happen to have a draft copy of what such a license would look like right here.
P.S.
The license shown even encourages non-GPL borrowers to keep their code open, all for the same low price.
You can't send a takedown notice to an already printed newspaper.
will not be allowed or tolerated by the hairy guys & gals community. you prominent figures should have known that.
Read radical news here
If you're writing a reference implementation of something, you may very well want your code to be usable commercially. Modern versions of the BSD license (without the advertising shenanigans) cover this case quite well.
BSDL is meant to spread good code. Code that is known to work, performs well, and contains few bugs. Its meant to increase adoption of standards and improve both commercial and free products. It aims to increase the value for consumers of all types.
Licenses like the GPL have different aims and, often, a political motivation. They redefine freedom to mean what they want it to mean, which is often opposed to its historic meaning. There is definate value in perpetually keeping work open, which makes a license like the LGPL probably better than the GPL if politics wasn't the true aim of supporters.
If you look at the code that is under BSDL-like licenses, you'll find that successful projects have been far more successful than GPL-like projects. They have had a far greater impact on the industry. However, they don't have rabid supporters like GPL groups do (e.g. the shameless group, SVLUG, was at the forefront of pushing Linux).
That is understandable; small scale demos that go along with academic publications might be licensed under the BSD (I think I would still choose LGPL or GPL), but maintaining a huge codebase under the BSD makes less sense to me. When you have a codebase as large as OpenSSH or one of the BSD distributions, it should be evident that the project is worthy of standing on its own. That's great. But, the fact that people are getting angry (like Theo) when the code is taken up and modified betrays the fact that deep down, they want a different license. Maybe not the GPL, but something more restrictive.
If a project was jointly funded by corportations and universities, then perhaps, at first glance, BSD would be a good choice. But you will always run in to these relicensing issues. Everything is trending towards Free Software these days, or at the least, open source software that is restrictive in its relicensing nature. Use BSD if you know what you're doing, but please, consider things first. Same goes for the GPL, when often times LGPL (in my view, but not RMS's most likely, is a better choice).
Almost all of my code which is released under an open source license is done under a BSD license because the only thing I really want out of people using my code is recognition that I contributed in some part to the project.
... with all that said, I have no idea why almost anyone else would write open source code that isn't under a more permissive license if they really want to 'help the community', GPL is more like a way to get people to fix your bugs :) There are plenty of big projects that have very permissive licenses that get contributions back from people even though they have no requirement to do so. Apache, zlib, libpng, openssl, all of them get plenty of stuff back, but don't REQUIRE you to make your project opensource if you use them.
If it becomes part of an open source project, under a GPL style license. Fine, thats fair, I'd hope they give back to me any fixes or enhancments, but if they don't thats okay because my name should still be in the source. This, in thoery means I'm better known in the development community and more likely to get a job working with people that appreciate my code.
Same goes for close source projects using my code, as long as they leave me credit, then some day in the future perhaps someone will say, 'hey, this guy did some good stuff, maybe we should see about hiring him?'
That is all I want out of the code I release. If I didn't care about that, I'd just call it public domain and forget about it. Occasionally I do release things as public domain when it seems far to trivial to reimplement in some other form.
To me, this is what open source is about, making it so other developers can benifit from the work I've done so maybe they build something better and everyone comes out ahead in the end.
What I don't want is for someone to have to reimplement something I've done just because my license doesn't comply with their license. To me there isn't a point in calling it 'open source' if someone can't use it in their project cause of some other silly licensing constraint or because they are trying to make money. I appreciate the BSD license style myself because I am employed as a commercial software developer. I can't use GPL'd code in any of my commercial products, so I many times have to implement something myself even though a GPL'd implementation exists.
As much as I want the world to all do things for the 'better good' of the world, its just unrealistic at this point in time to think that you're going to get quality software out of an entirely open source project unless it is run by some company or person who lays down some rules. I think too many people think GPL is the way to make all the software in the world free, but in my personal view, the really well done overall peices of software are written by someone motivated by financial concerns. In order to REALLY make money off software, open source just doesn't do it, you can always just get the source and build it yourself completely ignoring the original developers who invested their time to give you the software. On that same note, I don't think I've ever seen a dime from my source directly.
Sometimes I write code and open source it under a BSD license only to go to work the next day and pull that code into a closed source commercial product, so in that respect I suppose you could say it makes me some money, but mostly it just lets me do things in my own personal time that benifit me at work and don't require me to reimplement the whole thing if I want to use it in a personal project or at my next job. The company I work for loves it because they get all sorts of free work out of me on the weekends or after hours, I love it cause I don't have to implement stuff twice.
But
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I agree with everything you say. Also, I'd say that the LGPL is my favorite license on the whole, even for non-library projects.
My idea here, and maybe I'm wrong, is that people are publishing way too much code under the BSD.
So what prevents these same corporations from integrating GPL code? For example, what prevents Google from using GPL'ed code in their servers? Are you saying they can't keep their proprietary code separate? Prove that BSD is the only tool for that job.
You can't send a takedown notice to an already printed newspaper.
Oracle gets PLENTY of commercial value out of GPL licensed software.
This notion that if it's in the L/GPL then "evil greedy corporations" can't exploit it for their own gain is just a myth. The only thing that the L/GPL does is prevent you from treating someone else's code as if you wrote it yourself. That last bit of extra "freedom" that the BSDl is actually counterproductive. It takes something that EVERYONE can jointly exploit and allows it to be easily forked with that fork being obscured.
Forks can be bad enough when everyone can read the code.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
They are there to help him weather he wants it or not eh?
THat summary is one of the scariest things I've read lately. THOSE WHO KNOW BETTER WILL MAKE LIFE BETTER FOR YOU. Great. Every day in every way Open Source (Specifically GPLed) looks less and less attractive.
Thank you for your argument, this is also a fairly good one. The only point I disagree on is that GPL is not more for the community; BSD certainly influences more code adoption, and as you've stated, many patches trickle back down, but that isn't guaranteed. The nature of some projects probably effects the extent of what trickles back down and what doesn't.
If the Linux folks aren't providing fixes to the BSD folks (aka dual licensing), then I suppose that is in bad taste, but at the same time, this is the direct consequence of:
1) BSD choosing the BSD license
2) Linux people choosing (and possibly shooting themselves in the foot) not to dual license that segment of the code.
I would like to add that I use many BSD based projects and wish all BSD developers well =). And I totally agree that credit should be given to authors, it is simply in good taste even if the license doesn't require it.
"Let me therefore point out one last time that if the threats of litigation and bluster about crime and malpractice--none of which has the slightest basis in fact or law--were withdrawn, we would be able to resume detailed communication with everyone who has a stake in the outcome."
In international diplomacy demands that the other party publicly accept certain negotaiting points as a precondition to private talks usually bar any private talks from taking place. Sure, Theo de Raad may be heavy on the threats and rhetoric but he is not Kim Jong-il.
I suggest that Eben Moglen drop his demands for pre-conditions to meeting with the BSD people. Instead he should offer to meet with all concerned without anybody setting pre-conditions for the meeting.
-----------------
Steve Stites
That for Theo, reality is not a factor. He's wasting his time. This isn't to flame Theo at all, I think OpenBSD is fantastic, and people more skilled than I claim he is a great programmer, but public relations is not in his skill set.
Do people stick to the BSD license because it makes them feel unique? I'm not trolling here; I'd really just like to see a convincing argument on why the BSD is good.
The BSD license is good compared to the GPL because you aren't required to assign copyright to the FSF (read the GPL preamble).
The BSD license is good in and of itself because it allows the maximum amount of use for a piece of code, while still maintaining the author's name recognition. If I wrote a particularly good complex matrix package, for example, I would BSD license it and release it to the world. That way I get the most name recognition for my work, while still allowing the most use for that piece of code. If it's good enough, in twenty years, it might be the only matrix code anyone uses.
Granted, it's not the greatest example in the world, as much of that code already exists at netlib.org.
With those things in mind, WHY THE HELL IS THIS STILL BEING TALKED ABOUT, ESPECIALLY BY PEOPLE WHO ARE SUPPOSED TO PROMOTE THE OPENSOURCE WORLD?!
I don't care for the GPL, its not my idea of opensource. Is it wrong? Whos to say? I'm wrong more often than not. I get frustrated when I can't use GPL code because it won't work with my commerical projects or my BSD licensed open source projects. Do I flame the author? No. They didn't HAVE to even let me see it. Do I reimplement it? Sadly, most of the time I have to. Hopefully the author has atleast contributed to my code by allowing me to see some of his/her neat tricks or some of the mistakes they made in their implementation, or maybe just how I can do it better for mine. If after going over the code learning all I can about it, do I tell the author if I notice a bug? Assuming I can contact the author in some sane manner, yes (No, signing up for some retarded forum is not an acceptable contact method). I gained some knowledge, in exchange I'll try to give some back. I'd also like to think that most authors of GPL'd code would be willing to relicense small portions of their code for other projects if it would benifit the industry as a whole.
I don't expect them to be okay with someone ripping off a bunch of their code and claiming it as their own, then going off and making a fortune off it, thats not what they want, otherwise they would have used a BSD license :)
Everyone just needs to stop getting all excited when something like this happens. When some one type of OSS code is found in some other OSS licensed project we all need to stop, settle down, work out the details and move on like sensible adults. All these types of arguments do is scare companies who are considering F/OSS code but are afraid of the legal issues. We need to be good sports and work together or large organizations are never going to accept OSS as a viable alternative to commerical/closed source products. If its ever going to be 'the year of the linux desktop', its not going to go hand in hand with the 'the OSS license group is fighting that OSS license group over silly legal issues'.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I don't say this to be PC or placate anyone, but both sides appear to be right. Theo's side is correct that attribution was conspicuously absent. Eben's side is correct to admit it, and to fix it. Eben's side is also correct that threatening to litigate against a bunch of lawyers probably has repercussions. I think that's all Eben is saying here -- he is not saying "we won't change it, nyah!" But what he is saying is that since the response to his mistake was threats of lawsuit, his legal team has been forced to engage in S.O.P. for such cases, and withdraw. He feels that is a shame, because he's trying to work for Theo's group. But Theo's group is already casting aspersions on Eben's motives.
If it were me, I would simply do both what Theo's team is asking, and what the lawyers are asking: fix the mistakes until Theo's team is satisfied, and then withdraw. If you're withdrawing because you hate 'em now and want to scream & shout, fine to feel that way, but maybe don't say it. If you're withdrawing under protest because you feel that you should/could have done more good things together, fine to feel that way, but face facts: the relationship is poisoned at this point. Get out before the venom poisons the relationship more. Especially if the group is suspicious of your motives and is tarnishing your reputation by saying nasty stuff about you -- just get the hell away from it, spend your limited resources to help groups who are more gracious and less prone to paranoia.
If you do that, everyone wins. Theo's group gets rid of the suspicious betrayers they no longer want in their midst, and Eben's group gets away from a reputation-damaging public fight and money pit. There may also be karma -- perhaps Theo's group learns that they really needed Eben, and is forced to behave more politely with whoever next helps out. And perhaps Eben learns to be more careful up front, lest all his relationships end badly. Or perhaps, as Dane Cook says, they will "stick with the relationship for a few more years and end things violently."
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
Theo isn't pissed because someone modifies the code. He's pissed because they fucking changed the license on it, when they weren't allowed to.
People who license their software under the BSD License HAVE considered things. They simply have different priorities/philosophies than you.
If you are using a piece of BSD-licensed code, you must forever obey those three terms. They allow you to LINK code against any code - GPL, proprietary, whatever. BUT, you must always reproduce the copyright notice and the list of conditions. Nothing gives you the right to remove them.
So, you can create a derivative work that uses both GPL and BSD code, but that BSD code hasn't become GPL'd and you must still obey the terms of the BSD license. This is a common misconception because the BSD license's terms are so liberal. So, Linux (and other GPL projects) can appropriate code from the BSD world provided that they obey the three terms listed in the BSD license. GPL projects can add GPL code to BSD code in the same file, but until the BSD code is gone from that file - which would probably happen over years of rewrites - they have to obey those three clauses. No where does the BSD license say "you can disobey these clauses because you've changed the license."
Enforceability of contracts is what makes the GPL work. If the GPL world says it doesn't work when it's someone else's license, their projects are in deep trouble. And to think, this whole mess could be solved by simply removing that stupid relicense crap which has almost no practical implication other than GPL-ego.
The current 3 clause BSD license allows someone to release derived works under the GPL (or under closed-source commercial license). If you don't like that, then don't use the 3 clause BSD license. Licenses have specific meaning that should be understood before they are used. Ok, I think you are mischaracterizing the dispute. I don't think that anyone disagrees about the BSD license allowing for derivatives under the GPL v2 (see my latest journal entry why I don't think this applies to the GPL v3).
The large issue has to do with whether the BSD license allows for sublicensing (i.e for a licensee to offer a portion of his/her rights to a downstream licensee as a separate license). I personally don't think it does. Instead, I see the BSD license as a direct grant of rights to anyone who gets a copy of the source code.
In the case of a derivative work, nothing here prevents you from enforcing your own copyrights in any way you see fit (as long as you obey the terms of the BSD License). However, you cannot dictate to other people what terms govern the code which was provided to you under a nonexclusive BSD license. This is actually a big difference. Mr Moglen is on record saying that he thinks that the BSD license allows for this sort of sublicensing, and I disagree.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Perhaps because he's one of the world's preeminent software developers? Because he's contributed a significant amount to the Unix world? Because he's head of two of the biggest open source or free software projects? Because he's been fighting the good fight for freedom since before it became popular on the Internet to do so? Any one of these reasons are good ones to listen to what de Raadt has to say, I use OpenSSH every single day.
As on lkml the discussion here is tedious beyond belief. The whole tone of it reminds me of the letters page "Smash Hits" magazine (a teenage music mag in the UK) in the 1980s - where every letter seemed to be someone screaming at someone else because they dared to criticise their favourite band. Anyone wanting evidence that a lot of computer nerds are poorly adjusted individuals with little social skills need only read the exchanges on lkml.
If you want your customers to use GPL'd code, but you don't want to GPL your own code, then you need to do some 'on-site integration'.
Very often I would like to do some integration in the lab, and supply the result to the customer. But the powers-that-be will not let me.
Forcing me to integrate on the client site tends to make things more expensive and less well tested, so less reliable.
You may want to take a look at my journal entry about BSD/GPL3 compatibility concerns then. I respect people who want to allow people to use their work under any license.
However, the GPL3 grants them the right to restrict downstream permissions on your code without asserting any copyrights of their own over the affected code. You may want to think about this issue somewhat and talk about it with your lawyer (ideally one outside the FOSS community so you can be sure there is no bias) and consider adding a sublicensing provision or a dual license provision.
IANAL, TINLA, Please speak about these concerns with your attourney if the answers matter.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I have been following this controversy as it has snowballed over the past several weeks, and one thing is supremely clear: almost nobody understands the legal facts of the situation. In fact, because there are very few court-established precedents involving the overlap of multiple free software licenses, and the dispute involves code written in several different nations, hosted on servers in others, etc, even a lawyer who is knowledgeable about software licensing might say "we won't know the answer to that until it is ruled on by a court of law or new laws are passed by a legislature". The fundamental subject matter under discussion, the Atheros wireless drivers, is composed of chunks of code of which some are under BSD, and some are dual BSD/GPL licensed, from multiple authors, and with numerous small changes and emendations.
The issues and complexities involve do need to be clarified and I think in the long-run this controversy will have a great deal of positive benefit. Unfortunately, in the short-term, the viciously combative and aggressive personality of Theo de Raadt (as well as a few other individuals in both the BSD and Linux camps) is making the process of working out the issues much harder. Basically, Theo assumed bad faith from the outset, pouncing on a mislicensed patch with barely suppressed glee. It's obvious he was spoiling for a fight and has tried to throw as much mud as possible.
It's very bizarre to see someone who advocates the BSD license as the 'most free' try to find grounds for a lawsuit(!) on the basis of a licensing confusion of this nature. Considering that the GPL and BSD licenses are really just a slightly different vision on the best way to achieve a common goal -- freely available open code for all -- its almost tragic to see a community leader try so hard to disrupt and fragment the community. There are LEGITIMATE issues at stake here, and there ARE ethical and legal issues involved in how BSD-developed code is used in the Linux kernel. There probably are 'gpl zealots' who want as much code gpl-ed as possible, and may have been mistaken about what was permissible. Considering the publicness of Linux kernel development, problems are easy to find and fix, and there is no need for wild accusations and politicization of the process.
The BSD license is good compared to the GPL because you aren't required to assign copyright to the FSF (read the GPL preamble).
Reading the preamble is a good idea in your case. GPL doesn't require you to assign copyright to the FSF either. The FSF is mentioned once in the preamble, and that is only to say that they use the GPL for most of their projects internally.
After all, I am strangely colored.
You aren't required to sign your copyright over to the FSF if you use the GPL. The FSF does require you to sign over your copyright to have your code incorporated into any of the GNU tools, but if you are writing for say... the Linux kernel, or your own project, then you retain your copyright on the code you write.
To be fair, the GPL doesn't guarantee patch trickle-down either. Nobody may be inclined to build patches, or they may keep them for private deployments.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Slightly off-topic, but the GPL forbids you from linking BSD-licensed code to GPL-licensed code. Linking BSD-licensed code to LGPL-licensed code is OK, though.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
BTW, I agree with Theo on his interpretation of the BSD License as one which does not allow sublicensing. I think that Mr Moglen and others are factually wrong as to the nature of the license. But IANAL.
However, if Theo threatened to sue Mr Moglen or anyone else over these sorts of things, this is not helpful either. It is exceedingly difficult to sue lawyers for malpractice on the basis of his/her opinions and representation strategy (I suppose if a lawyer, say, goes on vacation instead of representing you at your trial that might be another thing). We should assume that all mistakes are honest until proven otherwise.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Most people belive that means you can either accept the BSD terms or accept the GPL terms (and from then on follow only the one chosen set of terms). Theo seems to be claiming that you somehow have to follow both sets of terms. I guess it depends on your definition of "alternatively".
Who is granting the rights? WHo is the recipient of those rights? On what basis can this be superceded other than by adding copyrighted elements of one's own to enforce independantly of those used with the permission of this license?
IANAL....
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Since previous iterations of this discussion have been dominated by wildly inaccurate characterizations of the BSD license, it seems only proper to actually include it:
http://ftp.bg.openbsd.org/OpenBSD/src/share/misc/license.template
To break it down even further:
Now, obviously, slapping a copy of the GPL in the file is within your rights to “use, copy modify, and distribute” the software. However, it is entirely pointless to do so: the GPL places additional restrictions on what you may or may not do with the code, yet those restrictions are voided by the fact that the BSD license — and, let’s not forget, removing the BSD license is the one thing that the license forbids — grants you those very rights that the GPL takes away. In order for the restrictions of the GPL to be effective, you must remove the BSD license, which you cannot legally do.
Now, can we please stop this nonsense about the BSD license giving you the right to re-license code under the GPL?
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
The BSD license requires that any re-publishing of the source code include the BSD license and the original copyright notice. Any use of BSD code that fails to do this is in violation of copyright law. In addition, since at least one provision of GPLv3 conflicts with the BSD license, while it's probably true that BSD allows one to add GPLv2 to it, it's probably not true of GPLv3.
Finally, I don't think it's fair to put the ethical issues aside. The FSF's entire basis of being is their ethical argument about code sharing. To take someone else's code and slap a stamp on it that requires that no one share modifications with the original author seems like it's against everything the FSF stands for.
E pluribus unum
Wasn't BSD supposed to be the non-viral open source license? Better stick with the Apache license then.
This depends on which files you are talking about in this case. Actually it seems that the so called "dual licensing" of the driver wasn't legally done for the files that are really in dispute! Since appending the GPL to a BSD licensed file itself was a violation of copyright any such GPL license is in violation and is thus the GPL license terms are null and void from having control of those files.
Who'd want a license anyway that prevented me from simply linking source code or binary code licensed under another license? That would be Totalitarian Control (which is what the GPL attempts).
True-Free Software is BSD or even better, Public Domain.
Since derivative works cannot change the BSD license, let's begin liberating some binaries. This is our moral duty on behalf of the BSD community.
In this case the facts are that the software files in question where under a BSD license and the changes were not enough to qualify for a derivative work.
... THIS LIST OF CONDITIONS actually means a least two things: one that the list must be kept in the license, and two, that the list of conditions MUST BE RETAINED on the code. That means that they can't be altered in anyway. That also means that attempting to add a GPL or other license isn't permitted.
It's perfectly fine if someone publishes their programs, which happen to include BSD licensed code, under whatever license they want. However, they can't change the terms of the BSD licensed code under any circumstances.
You simply have failed to understand the distinction that the BSD code must remain BSD code for all time. No adding license terms. Nada.
Enjoy using and linking with BSD code. But don't enjoy changing it's license. Thank you.
No clause three doesn't allow someone to release derived works under GPL. SORRY! Let take a look at why shall we.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
Ok, so all the following conditions MUST BE MET. With us so far GPL fans?
Here is the next clause:
* Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
Ok, the fact that it says MUST RETAIN
* 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.
Ok, same as above.
* 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 one is clear.
So, it's copyright law and the wording of the BSD (and ISC) license that is infectious and keeps the code and derived works free from repressive licenses like the GPL.
Also, different countries have different copyright laws. However the Berne Software Convention enables another countries software copyright laws to have effect in your country! In Germany the original authors KEEP their right to derived works! Yikes!
OOPS! That means that you'd need their permission to add to or adjust the license terms!
Actually the best policy is to ask the original authors before starting your changes. In this case asking for permission is really way better and less costly in time, money and legal aggravation than seeking forgiveness.
The message is simple. GPLers, stay away from infecting BSD code! Change the GPL so that it's not so damed self centered and arrogant to want to be the BORG and assimilate everything by the "linking policy".
a) There'd be no point in dual licensing otherwise
b) That's the plain and most obvious meaning of the word "alternatively" which is the word most often used (and used in this specific case I believe) when offering dual licences.
(I seem to recall that some files in this case may not have been dual licensed, but that is another issue).
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
The BSD license terms require that the software, source and binary, MUST BE distributed with the same list of conditions! That means that you CAN NOT modify the conditions if you are not the original authors.
It you want to change the licensing terms YOU MUST seek the original authors permission. YES, even if you make significant changes that qualify your changes as a derivative work.
Copyright Law is quite infective about this.
If you dispute this simply show where there is a grant to add any new license terms? Simply show where there is a grant to bind the software up in the GPL?
GPLers: keep your BORG assimilation nano probes off of BSD code. Change your main license to be friendly with linking to other licensed code.
This isn't international diplomacy and you're the one dragging controvertial figures like Kim Jong-Il into this. I haven't seen Eben (or even Theo) dragging him into the mix.
Eben has a very good reason for advising them against such talks: Theo & co. are tossing around legal threats. It would be malpractice for him to recommend anything that might get his clients in legal trouble. It may not be very polite, but it is the law. It's ironic, because last I knew, the code was remove, and the guy with the dual-license said he was okay with it, though another guy wasn't. Now all we have left is people shooting their mouths off and opining about what should or ought to be the case, even when those hypothetical situations have nothing to do with what actually happened.
If Theo wants to make legal arguments, he can make them in court.
If Theo wants to do diplomacy, he can drop the legal threats.
Frankly, I almost wish Theo'd sue. Then we'd find out whether the non-lawyer or the lawyer was actually right about what the law said. And maybe, just maybe, the one who was wrong about the law would shut the hell up already.
Yeah, I know. It's not like that will ever happen.
As far as I can see, the BSD license doesn't have a clause that says "you may also exchange this license by any other license you wish."
You are quite correct, it doesn't. However alot of people people who support the GPL seem to think that if it is ok to take BSD licensed code and incorporate it into a commercial closed source product why do they have such a problem with the same code being re-licensed as GPL that explicitly prevents this.
The problem is that we have two groups of people who both want similar aims but have vastly different tactics as to how to get there:
The FSF and Stallman think all code should be open source and code should never be a proprietary trade secret. The end result of this will hopefully then be that open source collaborative development becomes the primary method for producing software. This will hopefully then result in code and software of the highest quality.
The BSD crowd think that by just producing good code that performs well and then letting commercial users take the code and incorporate it into their products a situation will eventually arise where the companies producing close source products eventually become so reliant on the open source (BSD style) programmers that the small amount of closed source development they do on top becomes almost irrelevant. If these companies then make a commercially successful product based on 90% BSD licensed code then the BSD developers would have more bargaining power when it came to encouraging the remaining 10% to be open source as well. There is probably also the fact that as a programmer, it is always nice to see your work getting used extensively and appreciated, even if that appreciation does just come about because you help make someone else richer. I know this would piss alot of people off but some people (myself included) just enjoy writing code and any monetary reward is entirely secondary.
So both licenses could result in toppling the status quo of pure closed source development (and it is the status quo, however much we wished otherwise). The main difference is that one method (GPL) seems to be much more about trying to use the legal system to force this change and one method is more about gentle persuasion over a much longer timescale that may make alot of closed source developers and managers rich in the process.
So far I have mainly just tried to some up the different camps points of view by way of an introduction, if you disagree with by synopsis above, fine but this is the main reason I think the GPL (especially the GPL3) method is not as straight forward as the license itself would lead you to believe:
The Law is NOT on our side.
I am not talking about the actual letter of the law, I am talking about the legal system and who controls it. The fact is that in most of the world, the law sucks. In the US there is the DMCA. In Europe we have recently only just narrowly avoided software patents, and even now it may only be a temporary reprieve. The shitty truth is that big business long ago purchased our politicians and they are responsible for deciding what becomes law.
If anyone wants to post a serious rebuttal to this comment, please do so by explaining to me why any western legal system would back the little guy against a huge corporation, because recent history shows that this does not happen very often. Even the recent reprieve that us in the Linux community got from the stupid SCO lawsuits only came about because another huge corporation got involved.
Lets remember that Novell were that huge corporation. IBM started our defense, but they got bogged down with their initial legal position and it was Novell that ultimately won out. Yet Novell are actually on the FSF shitlist for getting in bed with Microsoft.
The fact is that linux would not be anywhere near where it is today if IBM and Novell had not fought SCO in court. SCO would have gone around demanding licensing fees from any company that adopted Linux, and a lot of companies w
I dont read
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Well, I don't know about the preamble (it's been a long time since I last read the GPL), and I agree that the FSF don't require you to assign copyright to them. However, they definitely do recommend that you do, as then they can go after GPL violations involving the code. If you retain copyright, then you'd have to do it yourself, and most people don't have the FSF's resources.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
One of the things we have learned from the SCO saga is that when you are in a lawsuit shut up. Morgen can hardly be expected to continue to be open with Theo under thread of legal attack, whatever the rights and wrongs of the situation. Do you really think the BSD people want to meet him?
- The FSF's chief legal counsel, Eben Moglen, is "arrogant and unscrupulous" as well as "crafty and cowardly"
- Moglen has a "stated goal" that he's breaking the law by "stealing as much software as possible and putting it under the GPL even when doing so is illegal"
- The FSF is fighting a "war against reality"
- The only reason the FSF exists is to "keep stealing code until they get busted, go to court, and then go back to stealing as much code as possible."
Oh, and the "delusional and deranged" Richard Stallman is leading anyone who uses the GPL to a Jonestown-style koolaid suicide.Why does anyone bother reading JC Roberts' nuttery? He sounds like he's either 14 years old, off his meds, or both.
Advice: on VPS providers
Naturally I don't have to point out the irony of your signature line, or do I?
If you aren't a lawyer and haven't written any code then STFU. Seriously.
The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
It's funny how you indite yourself with your signature line. Asking someone to "STFU" is an act of censorship, Mr. Censor!!!
There's a lot of confusion here, but one thing that is set in stone is that if there is a BSD license on a piece of source code, that license cannot be physically removed from the source code.
If you look at source from projects like FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and my own DragonFly project, as well as virtually any other large BSD project, you will find that a huge number of source files contain multiple licenses. Nearly all such licenses are BSD-derivative. The issue here is not the presence of multiple licenses but instead how they should be interpreted.
I and all the open source authors I know have always interpreted the presense of multiple licenses as a union of license terms as it pertains to the portions of the source file created or modified by the authors in question. For example, if you went back in the CVS history of a source file and pulled at that older version of the code, potentially with fewer licenses attached to it, then you would be able to operate on that older version of the code and be bound only to the licenses that existed at that time. Another example, if person A builds a piece of software and applies the BSD license to it, and later on person B makes changes (or not) and adds the GPL to the code (if we assume for the moment that this is legal to do)... then all you have to do to get out of the GPL is to simply use a version of the source file where the GPL is not present. That's it. Even if the added GPL were interpreted as being illegal that still does not give you the right to use the second author's modifications to the work when you refuse to accept the license. However, neither does it necessarily give the second author the right to use the original author's work, and that is what Theo is arguing right now. and I think Theo is correct in this case.
But again, regardless of how you interpret the legality or how you interpret the existence of multiple licenses in a piece of source code, the BSD license CANNOT be removed from that code, ever, by anyone except the copyright holder, for any reason.
So in my view it is 'ok' to make modifications to a piece of open source code and slap on your own license for those modifications as long as the existing licenses allow it and as long as the original authors intent is to allow it. I have always interpreted the BSD license as allowing that because that is always how BSD developers have always interpreted the presence of multiple licenses in BSD code in the past. BSD developers have always been very careful to not accept patches that add incompatible licenses for no good reason, and have always been careful to not use someone else's work in ways that was clearly not intended by the original authors, legal or not.
The spirit of the intent of the original author is what counts the most in the open source world. It is not a legal definition. It seems very clear to me that the ORIGINAL authors of the code that was relicensed do not wish it to be relicensed under the GPL. In the open source world, that trumps everything else. If they don't want it to be relicensed, then it can't be relicensed, period, regardless of the legalese. It is unarguable in the court of the open source world.
Now copyright law has its own interpretation of how licenses in derived works operate, even on the definition of what 'derived' means. From a purely legal standpoint -- that is, if one were to sue in court, the interpretation is going to be different from the interpretation of the open source community.
No matter what the legal interpretation is, though, I would not consider anyone creating a derived work from that code base and relicensing it under the GPL against the express wishes of the original authors to be part of the open source community any more. If these people are expressly going against the wishes of the original authors their modifications should be censored by our community, period.
-Matt
Both you and the commentator to whom you reply have missed one crucial fact: The contributions submitted under the dual license terms which remain part of the file are licensed under the dual license terms. Until and unless every contributor has explicitly given permission to re-release the file under novel terms, the dual license still applies.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
The question is who put the "alternatively" in there. It does matter who. Also the question is which files are you talking about? It does matter which files.
The so called "dual license" file is not the issue IF it was dual licensed by the original author. There is another file (or set of files) that were NOT dual licensed by the original authors that were modified. This is the one in question. Please see Theo's comments for these details.
The BSD license says that the list of conditions must be retained. Copyright Law says that you can't modify the license without permission. No permission is granted to modify or amend the license, thus copyright law prevails and you loose.
So, your double "wrong" is doubly wrong.
The interpretation that any license can be added to a BSD license is incorrect.
First you'd have to pass the test of creating a derivative work under copyright law, and then you'd have to pass the test of asking permission from the original authors.
The BSD/ISC licenses allow you to do what you want with the code, not the license! There is no grant that the original work or derived works can be relicensed, or dual licensed, or have the license modified in anyway. In many countries the original authors always keep copyrights in derived works.
You need to ask permission. I recommend that you get it in writing too, just to be sure and on the safe side.
The code remains licensed under the BSD license.
Only the original code remains licensed under the BSD license. The new code is licensed under the GPL, which means that you can redistribute the entire file only if you meet the conditions of both the BSD and the GPL license.
parts were BSD-ONLY and could not have the BSD license removed from them.
This is correct. However, it doesn't affect what you can do with the code: the GPL restrictions still apply to any additions, and hence to the file in its entirety (unless the changes are so minor that they don't get a separate copyright, in which case it doesn't matter anyway).
It's also highly ironic that the "Software Freedom Law Center" is fighting to restrict freedom and prevent the BSD projects from using this code.
The BSD project won't comply with the additional restrictions imposed by the GPL, so the BSD project can't use the code.
Perhaps just because he is such a brilliant software developer while being such a master of making enemies out of his allies.
Theo should seek professional help
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
>Theo seems to be claiming that you somehow have to follow both sets of terms And this doesn't matter, because Sam Leffler, the original author, already clarified it, because he is the author. But there is code from an OpenBSD author too included and it's just this BSD style license.
Hi mr. calm down.
The main issues surrounding this have to do with copyright law and what it allows you to grant or not. It's not really a BSD or GPL issue in the general case.
Now, if someone took your new "individual" license and "stole" the code by including it in their license you'd not be too happy about it would you? Yeah, likely you'd be pissed off.
That's what this is about. Theft of copyrighted code. Really the license isn't relevant at that level. BSDers get pissed when it happens. GPLers get really pissed when it happens to them. You'd get pissed when it happens to you.
The bottom line is that while this specific situation is dealing with BSD vs. GPL and someone who stole, or attempted to steal BSD licensed code, and convert it without permission to a GPL license it's a general problem for open source software, true free software and the so called double speak of the GPL/GNU group "free software" (what a travesty their propaganda is).
This is problem even for you who create your own licenses!
Yes, the GPL is highly restrictive and prevents self-determination thus it is not "Free Software"; it's better named "communal software" or "communistic software".
GPL is about assimilation of as much code into the commune as they can get their pesky communistic mittens on.
GPL code prevents self-determinism thus it's not free software, it's "commune software".
True Free Software is either BSD/ISC like or Public Domain.
The driver code in question was duel liscensed under the GPL and BSD liscenses. It contained text stating that it could be redistributed under the GPL or BSD liscense.
You know, or as in the disjuctive operator.
p q or
T T T
T F T
F T T
F F F
p = BSD, q = GPL.
Yeah, but you'd think Theo would know better than to claim you have to follow both sets of terms. If you do, then the code is, effectively, GPLed. Theo seems to think that he can follow the BSD license when code is dual-licensed, without regard to the GPL. Makes sense to me. Why, then, does he think it's wrong to follow the GPL license?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Did you actually read the license? I don't think so. "# 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." http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php So you can use it freely, but you cannot strip the license. Why is this so hard to understand for Linux people? Isn't it enough just to use it? No they want the GPL mark on top of it too. And furthermore: http://openbsd.org/policy.html So just leaving the license intact isn't freedom anymore? According to this reasoning, the GPL is pure slavery
That's actually the ISC license, not that it matters all that much as they are almost identical.
Why don't you take your medication, then wander on over to the FSF and Gnu sites? There's discussions of licenses at the Gnu philosophy site, including a list of free licenses. You will find a mention suggesting once circumstance under which you might want to use another license; there are likely others. They do seem to prefer licenses that are compatible with the GPLs, but that seems reasonable to me.
Those facts can be so inconvenient to a good rant, can't they?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The reason that you need to rewrite code previously written in GPL is because of the nature of the license. Everybody will have to rewrite everything (or license it) because BSD doesn't support sharing - and so the library of shared sources that are available under BSD is not nearly as large as what is available under GPL.
As you point out, this is a boon for you and me as Software Engineers... but economically the amount of rework that is needed is absurdly inefficient.
As an engineer, I'd rather improve and give back somebodies code rather than simply re-coding it (and possibly missing important corner cases). As an economist, I realize that part of the core business for Software Engineers is doing things over and over again (just like plumbers, electricians, lawyers, farmers, and doctors).
At the end of the day... the war between the public good and the commercial good is an interesting one.
Support the 30 Hour Work Week!!!
- The license says "you can copy this code if you accept terms A or terms B".
- Terms A say all copies must include terms A, but do not mention terms B.
- Terms B say all copies must include terms B, but do not mention terms A.
- I accept terms B.
- Therefore, I must include terms B in all copies.
- I do not accept terms A, and don't have to because the license text says the right to copy is available under terms B, and I've accepted those.
- Terms B don't say anything about including terms A, so, legally, why would I be required to do so?
As far as I can tell, this side-effect is the only reason for someone to release code under a dual BSD/GPL license—otherwise, why not just use pure BSD?...all BSD derived software can be freely redistributed, even proprietary binaries.
Support the 30 Hour Work Week!!!
No, not necessarily true.
IF YOUR changes are NOT substantial enough to be qualify as a derivative work then your changes WHEN MERGED with the original authors work THEN you effectively don't have any copyright in your changes that are merged!!!
However, if your changes are substantial enough, in volume, or cause a change so that the original work is different enough then you may qualify for a derivative work. However, the BSD license stipulates that you must retain the license terms, meaning that a BSD license takes hold as a precondition of your being allowed to do the work.
The same holds true of an ISC license due to copyright laws that provide the original authors rights in derivative works in countries that have those rights.
In certain countries the original authors may not gain control of your derived copyright however, it's always best to check to see the lineage of the authors in terms of which countries their copyright too effect in.
The best policy is that if you are going to want to change the license of a work that you've created a derived work of it's best to ask the original authors ahead of time before you waste your time changing the code. Permission is better than forgiveness in this case.
As much as I want the world to all do things for the 'better good' of the world, its just unrealistic at this point in time to think that you're going to get quality software out of an entirely open source project unless it is run by some company or person who lays down some rules.
Damn, I must be hallucinating a lot...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Copyright prevents you from altering the license.
Here is one thing I don't get about this "argument". Is _any_ of the "linux people" even arguing this? This is all based upon a patch that never even made it's way into the kernel, and the issue has afaik been fixed. Now, maybe there are some residual complaints there, but that's another story and will probably be addressed if they can even communicate through all the crap that's been thrown around.
So, why is it this repeated over and over as one of the main points of the supposed argument? In my eyes, this entire "argument" seems to be based on differences that mostly doesn't even exists, and that makes me just more convinced that it's fueled at least partly by somekind of astroturf campaign. (/me takes off tinfoil hat)
For me, as an avid supporter of the GPL (I'm wearing a gpl v3 t-shirt right now
As I see it, the apparent anger from both sides (if there is such a thing) of this argument is way out of proportion and it saddens me greatly to see all the angry posts arguing about.. what exactly.
Sorry for possibly awkward english, I'm not native.
I forget, when has the SFLC ever been de Raadt's ally? They advised people to steal from his friends.
After all of this BS, it seems to me that the claim of "the BSD license grants more freedom than the GPL" has gone out the window. It's clear that the license's main proponents have an agenda to keep, and that this supposedly free license comes with a number of restrictions in regards to dual-licensing. If I were going to license software and make it free as in FREE, I'd put it in the public domain. If I were going to license software where I wanted to see what changes others had made, I would use the GPL. The BSD seems to be in the awkward middle, where some changes can be kept to yourself while others are to be kept open lest you be called names and be threatened with legal action by certain obnoxious people.
If this is the way things are going to be, with all of this "you-can-but-you-can't" nonesense concerning the license's "gray areas", the BSD ought to be replaced by:
1. code explicitly placed in the public domain
2. MIT (especially for dual-licensing)
3. GPL if you don't want to lose others' modifications
And if this same junk pops up with MIT dual-licensed code, options #1 and #3 still work.
Nothing. The GPL only deals with distribution. Google may right now be organizing orgiastic mixtures of GPL'ed code and all sorts of proprietary code and that'd be perfectly fine, as long as they do not distribute the result.
* Somebody put BSD code into GPL code, and did not keep the original copyright tags. A totally isolated incident.
* Althought the GPL coder was technically wrong, there was no harm done, and the situation has been fixed.
* The BSD community has been having a screeming bitch-fest for weeks, making all kinds of insane accusations and threats.
* Although the BSD community has no problem at with BSD code hidden in a msft binary, they get their panties all in a wad about BSD code put into Linux.
* Theo de Raadt is so bitchy and irratating that even his fellow BSD zealots can't stand him much of the time. And even though Theo is clearly unqualified about legal matters, much of the BSD is getting behind on this.
Is that about right?
Theo might be (and very probably is) a very competent programmer. On the other hand, his communication skills are sorely lacking, as he can't make a statement without turning it into a flamewar over nothing. The word "diplomacy" seems to be entirely unknown to him.
And that is why I wouldn't (and don't) listen to him.
Does "J.C. Roberts" have anything to do with the code in question?
If not, why are people feeding this troll?
>The driver code in question was duel liscensed under the GPL and BSD liscenses.
COOL! So, when's the RMS vs. Theo bout going to take place? More importantly, what will be the weapons? Hurled invective at 10 paces?
Bill Gates' dick taste?
A: It tastes sweeter and sweeter every day.
Copyright Law is VIRAL with respect to derivative works, including those covered by ISC, BSD, Apache, GPL, etc!!!
Including BSD licensed files is fine as long you don't claim to have your license cover those files. As long as they are left alone and are along for the ride you're ok.
You can even make changes to BSD files. As long as those changes don't qualify for a derivative work you can't copyright them WITHIN THE MERGED WORK! You can ship them, but you can't claim copyright because Copyright Law says you don't qualify for a copyright on non-derivative work changes.
If you make significant changes that qualify for a non-derivative work then it gets complicated. In some countries the original authors keep ownership of the derivative works! Countries like say, oh, Germany (where the driver was written)! In other countries like the USA the original authors don't gain copyright in your changes, however, unless you were granted permission to change the license on a derived work you may need to ship it with the same license.
All this has to do with Copyright Law. The Berne Convention also steps in to make things work internationally but also complicates matters significantly by extending the rights of the authors country to other countries. So a German copyright law that is different than in the USA may still have effect in the USA.
Basically the notions that the BSD isn't viral are true, but it's copyright law that exquisitely viral in nature!
The GPL is viral in other ways, so I suppose we'll need a distinction between these two meanings of "viral" so that people don't get confused.
When it is said that Copyright Laws are viral it means that the original authors rights are difficult to get rid of.
"To me, this is what open source is about, making it so other developers can benifit from the work I've done so maybe they build something better and everyone comes out ahead in the end."
Ahh.... we hit the difference between the BSD and GPL. BSD is great for other DEVELOPERS, creating a brotherhood of sorts in the developer world.
The GPL paradigm is to protect the USERS, so the USERS cannot get locked out from the source of the software that they depend on.
Now thankfully, I use both, the software I want to be sure is around for a long time, I use GPL. For software that I need to include in binary apps, I use BSD.
Now you seem to have a level head on your shoulders, why can't you lead OpenBSD?
Unfortunately, it's really impractical for Linux to keep code in the main kernel source tree under a dual license. The problem is that you can't cut/paste code from one file into another because code that was contributed under the GPL cannot be re-offered under a dual license.
Consider the following nightmare scenario:
1) Linux gets a filesystem that's under a dual-license. They try to keep it that way.
2) Someone adds a new hook that all filesystems should support. The add support to the ext2 and ext3 filesystems, which are under the GPL.
3) Someone tries to add support for that hook into the filesystem mentioned in part 1, but they cannot cut/paste any of the implementation from ext2/ext3 into the file the implementation has to go into.
It is extremely difficult for a project to have to deal with code sections that are under a different license. The exception would be if those code sections aren't under active development inside the project. But every file in the Linux kernel distribution, almost, is under active development. Things like filesystems and drivers clearly so.
You're making this more complicated than it is.
A work that combines code under two different licenses may only be distributed under the terms of both. That is, you have to satisfy all of the terms of both licenses. If that's impossible, because the terms of license A contradict the terms of license B then it you can't distribute it.
BSD is generally considered compatible with GPL because the BSD terms are minimal and it's simple to satisfy the terms of both licenses.
Wasn't BSD supposed to be the non-viral open source license?BSD isn't viral, GPL isn't viral, *copyright* is viral. If you put someone else's copyrighted code into yours, the combined work can only be distributed under terms that satisfy you and the other copyright holder. Their copyright "infects" yours. Now, with many of the non-copyleft, permissive licenses that's not a problem under just about any usage scenario because their terms are so loose. But it doesn't change the fact that the work is *always* jointly-owned and subject to all of the licenses on all of the code in it.
Better stick with the Apache license then.The Apache license is no different. Combined works that contain Apache licensed code must obey the terms of that license, as well as the terms of any other licenses on the contained code.
If you want to completely avoid "viralness" you should only incorporate code that is in the public domain. No one owns that, and everyone is free to do whatever they want with it, completely free of any and all restrictions.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Copyright law prevents you from adding to the license!
The ISC and BSD license do not grant you the right to adjust the license.
The simply grant you the right to use the software anyway you like. They don't grant you the right to change the license anyway you want!!! A very important legal distinction.
This is true but misleading. The dual license still applies to, and only to, contributions by those individual authors who contributed under a dual license.
For example, suppose I am contributing to a file under a dual license. All I need is the right to modify the work or create a derivative work. Once I have that right, I can contribute. And the only rights you get to my contributions are those that I am required to grant you or choose to grant you. There are two ways I can do that:
1) The BSD license permits me to make modifications and distribute them. It does not require me to offer my changes under the BSD license, so I am not required to do so. It does not require me to leave the GPL license offer in the code, so I am not required to do so.
2) The GPL license permits me to make modifications and distribute them. It does not require me to keep the BSD license text intact, so I am not required to do so.
Note that none of this affects the license on the original code, but they do affect the license on my modifications and thus what you can do with the integrated work.
Does OpenBSD have ReiserFS yet?
Nope. Some code involved in the dispute had a license notice that says that you may use, distribute or modify under either the terms of the GPL or the BSD. Other parts of code are BSD license only.
But even assuming that all of the code was dual licensed, removing the license notice is at least questionable. The people who receive that code from you, either in the original form or in the form of a derived work from it, have the right to the original work under the terms of either the GPL or BSD licenses, at their choice. When you strip out the BSD notice, you misrepresent the license to the original work, which is at least bad, if not flat out illegal.
Are you adequate?
Eben is the one who was advising the linux developers in question. He is the one telling them to remove the BSD license from the code.
who voted for these people ? and by who ? how much bearing does what they say have on the other 191 countries in the world ? ahh yeah NONE
you would think from most of the comments that FOSS is an American concept written and politicised by them, iam sure the contributers of open source from the rest of the globe are most pleased to watch a load of self-appointed advocates fight amongst themselves about who can take the most credit/politics/speeches for an international project where these lawyer "software freedom legal club" are only a small subset
shame on you for denigrating and politicising all those contributions from around the globe, i guess those dirty foreigners will just have to suck up to any decisions that these Americans think, truly its a shame
(To disclaim something from the very start: IANAL.)
Forget the technical term "license," or the technical sense of "work" for a bit. What copyright law amounts to, essentially, is that when you do some creative work, you automatically have certain rights to control the use, modification and distribution of the result of your work. Except for certain exceptions (e.g., fair use), nobody can make use of your work without your permission.
This is what the term "license" means--you, as an author of a piece of creative work, give permission to other parties to use your work in certain specified ways, as long as they obey certain conditions.
If you want to use somebody else's work, you have to have permission to use it in the way in question. This means that if you want to run a program, you need permission to run the program; if you want to give a copy to somebody else, you need permission to do so; if you want to produce an original piece of work that contains, as an inseparable part of it, the work in question, and give this to somebody else, you need permission do that.
Also, when you give anything that incorporates the original work to somebody else, the recipient also needs to have permission to use it in whichever ways they do. There are two ways your recipients can obtain that permission:
The second of these is called "sublicensing," and it's important to keep in mind, because neither the BSD nor the GPL licenses allow you to sublicense; they work by giving the same set of permissions to everybody.
Now, here's the deal with the "dual-licensed" code in the case in question (which shouldn't be taken as the general case for "dual-licensing," because the term is somewhat ambiguous). The author of the original work gives permission to everybody to make certain uses of the code, as long as they satisfy the terms of either the GPL or BSD. However, you're not given the right to sublicense the work; that means that you have no right to give others permission to use the original author's work, nor to dictate what terms they have to follow to use that work. The whole free software scheme works because the original author grants license to everybody, which means that your recipients have the original author's permission to use their code even if they receive it from another party like you.
Now, here's how I read the dual-license situation with the reproduction of the BSD license notice:
Another important thing is that for you to be able to assert copyright, you must have done some original, creative work. This is an important thing to keep in mind, because one of the arguments that Theo has made in this case is that there are some files that have had copyright and license notices added to them, but which do not show any original, creative work other than what's in OpenBSD. This may be true or not (I've heard the argument that making these files work in Linux, in and of itself, should qualify as original, creative work), but one thing for sure is that most people commenting about the situation are failing to even understand what arguments the participants are making.
Are you adequate?
Then that would make you, of, how shall I put this, diplomatically? A dipshit? No, perhaps a misguided individual lacking in sufficient understanding of the world. How diplomatic something is does not effect how correct it is, the facts are the facts no matter how they are uttered.
Here let me rephrase this:
You could take this statement and use it for quite a few developers.
The children of USENET all have this same problem it seems.
>Theo seems to be claiming that you somehow have to follow both sets of terms.
>I guess it depends on your definition of "alternatively".
Claiming...your definition.... all ethereal terms.
How about someone asks the author what he meant by dual licensing?
Oh,..wait...they have???
Nope, nobody is claiming the latter, except as a strawman, and everybody agrees on the former, for the cases where it applies (hint: there are disputed files that were only licensed under the BSD).
You can modify and redistribute dual-licensed code under either the terms of the GPL or the BSD. Insofar as the code you redistribute contains work that's covered under such a dual license, however, your recipients also have a dual license to those parts of the work you give them, because nobody has granted anybody a right to sublicense work. This means that:
Are you adequate?
Have you see the question:
How are the various GNU licenses compatible with each other?
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#AllCompatibility
Look at the table.
There a dozens of different GPL & LGPL.
Even codes between some of these licenses are "legally incompatible". And all this texts came from the same source. What's the point?
Are we suppose to make free software or to invent a new market for lawyers?
Yeah, vote for the nutjob who thinks Bill Gates is a shining example of America the free, and would be an ideal person to help run the country. Maybe we could send Bill and Ted back to get Mussolini, he'd be even better!
"It's also highly ironic that the "Software Freedom Law Center" is fighting to restrict freedom and prevent the BSD projects from using this code."
I'm from the SFLC and I'm here to help.
Oh, sure yeah. You are allowed to make it look like the original author, contrary to fact, licenses the code to other people under terms that you actually picked. Yeah. Nothing even remotely questionably legal with that.
Are you adequate?
I think someone should clarify Theo's and his family's involvement with the apartheid regime is South Africa. What caused them to flee South Africa and relocate in Canada? Maybe someone should investigate and find out the facts . . .
Reyk, the man who's rights were violated and Jiri, who did the violating, are not American, they're German and Greek respectively, and Theo is Canadian. Eben is American, and he's the one who was advising this illegal act. Theo, the Canadian, is rather versed in copyright law and is defending the rights of the German from the Greek misadvised by the American.
No, what you are describing does not constitute a "relicensing" or sublicense of the BSD work in question. Neither Microsoft nor Apple have any right to give additional permissions to use the BSD work. They have a right to distribute it as part of a derived work, in binary-only form; their users have a right to use the resulting work, and if they obtain the sources for the original, to use them in the same manner as MS or Apple do.
Are you adequate?
I mean can't we all just get along.
Say what you want about Theo, At least he's consistent.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
I am not a lawyer, know only what I read in the US Code about copyright law, and know nothing about the original circumstances that started this topic, so of course I am Slashdot qualified to comment on it like I know everything there is to know about the subject.
1) Theo De Raat was right in his first posting about this topic. You can't remove or alter a copyright notice in the process of distribution if that license prohibits that activity. Even under dual-license you can't eliminate one to prefer the other or it no longer becomes a "dual" license.
2) Theo De Raat exhibits his first rate fucktard nature when replying to people he disagrees with. I believe that De Raat is quite simply the greatest impediment to the development of *BSD code. It is my honest opinion that no one likes dealing with him but instead tolerate him because he has excellent coding skills and has such a long history with the code base that he can't be ignored. I guess he prefers the "respected rather than liked" method to life.
3) The submitter fucked up the article title. Eban Moglen was not lashing back at De Raat. He was commenting about the person posting as J.C. Roberts, a person I believe is an unsufferable shitstain who likes to throw around threats of lawsuits and malpractice. I read the thread with De Raat's original comments and couldn't find any threats of lawsuits. Maybe I'm reading the wrong threads.
http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=118861134304239&w=2
4) This has nothing to do with Linux. This has everything to do with the GPL and BSD. Linux is a fucking kernel that has a GPL license.
Fucking shit, people! There are more important things to comment on in this world.
O.J. has been arrested for armed robbery, for Christ's sake.
I'm thinking the BSD community finally just got bored or jealous after watching us in the GPL community be so nutty for years and now their trying it themselves. The 'code' that everyone keeps harping on was a patch. A patch that was never actually accepted into any upstream repo. An issue that was address quite reasonably and quickly, despite these facts.
Of course what's the point of being nutty if you can't bend/forget/reassemble reality to get really good and frothed up. This issue is really two separate issues, but if you read any n post you quickly see that there's not even a pretense of separation any more (it's wide open bitch season baby!). The issue started with a patch that stripped the BSD copyright notice on code that was originally released BSD/GPL2 (then modified BSD). This was wrong, but it was just some guy doing it (ie...er, not the 'Linux community'). It never made it into any upstream repos. It was loud as everyone got really bitchy about it but the fact is it wasn't 'sanctioned' action and no-one was actually trying to do, well, anything. The issue was quickly resolved.
The issue that's really at hand that's being mostly swept under the carpet is long standing resent for the GPL community for regularly 'stealing' BSD code. Not violating the copyright mind you, but using the free software in GPL projects then not providing the patches or changes made back to the BSD community (because all the GPL work is...GPL and not reverse compatible).
So on one hand you've got the nuts, constantly harping on this non-issue. On the other you have the developers who (at least in part) feel 'cheated' and consider it hypocritical for one open source group to benefit from the other without making the open code available to the other (which is the real issue). Then you have the license issues where things start to fall apart a bit. Since the BSD allows for use that closes code off (true freedom) this isn't even about the code not being available. Or, if it is, it's about a segment of the BSD community which appears to want to put more restriction on their code then the (permissive) BSD currently does. Which is kind of ironic really.
As much as I like RMS it looks like BSD just got their own with Theo. And he has followers.
Quack, quack.
Your conceit is slimier than you are making it appear. You are leaving out the step where the duality of the license is conveyed by the original developer. Or are you just assuming that if you come across any source code with both the BSD and GPL licenses pasted inside that this implies a dual license? Presumably you need a statement from the original author, preferably in writing, even better written into the source file itself, that the original author intends the two license texts to function under a dual-license either/or interpretation.
The only way copyright for a work can be verified by a recipient is when the derivation chain can be reconstructed through the derived work(s) back to the original work. If a person goes out of his/her way within the letter of the law to muddy that trail, I would regard the actions of that person as quite vile.
Perhaps you can, as you suggest, legally strip out one of the licenses (and the text granting the dual license, if that was present within the source file). But then if you distribute your derived work, you are handing people half a proof. Sensible projects would not accept the work in that form. They would want to see the derivation chain before taking that risk.
You seem to be suggesting by implication that the derivation chain can be maintained outside the text of the source file by some auxilliary shuffleupagus which most users of the source are unlikely to chance upon. If that wasn't your purpose, why delete the in-place full disclosure of the dual-license status of the original work?
In my view, there is no ethical way to substitute for the attribution "this is a derived work of a work by Bob Dawg who granted permission to do so under a dual-license" to "this is a derived work of an original work by Bob Dawg [and good luck figuring out the terms of his original license grant]" and by grant I mean his *statement* that permission was granted under dual-license terms, not the mere inclusion of two different licenses into the top of a source file, which in the absence of a clear statement, I would regard as ambiguous.
I see no problem with writing "This a derived work of an original work by Old Author dual-licensed under the GPL and BSD licenses. The original work is available at URL. New Author has elected to make changes under the GPL, which is reproduced below."
My point is not about trimming out the text of the BSD license, it's about muddying the terms of the original grant through crafty omission in the wording of your own grant, to the detriment of any future party who comes into contact with the derived work.
Your use of the word legal word "requires" (in the selfish conjugation: that I myself can not be sued by any party) neglects getting along nicely with any other parties to the overall process, upstream or downstream.
I could be wrong. The mere inclusion of two license texts could amount to an implicit grant of dual-license either/or status. So what? The only thing standing upon the letter of the law achieves is breeding more lawyers. Then you have to pay them a lot of money to stop breeding. With luck, and patience, and buckets of cash the legal bugs are resolved. Original authors, if they have any time left to code, learn to paste a more explicit legal text into their document that accomplishes the same thing legally at great cost that common sense and good will could have accomplished in the first place.
Only a dimwit or a lawyer advocates a move in the game tree where the only consequence of the end game is that the lawyers get rich while the loophole is closed. That is after all an explicit function of the legal system: to be so damn expensive and unproductive that it scares us into applying common sense against natural inclinations such as the one you expressed.
Enforceability of contracts is what makes the GPL work.
This is false. The GPL isn't a contract and you are under no obligation to accept it. Rather, nothing else gives you permission to exercise what are normally the exclusive rights of the copyright holder. Namely, reproducing the work and making derivative works. In reality it is the enforceability of Copyright that makes the GPL work. If you violate the GPL and Eben Moglen hauls your ass into court, you're not going to be facing a breach of contract suit. Nope, it'll be a copyright infringement suit.
As if your opinion mattered... I'd love to see this wonderful code that you are somehow punishing us by not releasing under the BSD or GPL licenses.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Who is giving the right to whom.
If this is a blanket offer of copyright permissions to anyone who comes into posession of the code, then no, one cannot strip the license. One would have to follow either both sets of permissions *or* the BSD License (since it offers basically a superset of actual rights granted by the GPL).
If the license is saying that it allows for sublicensing under the GPL, then it allows someone to essentially put a notice at the top which states that this copy is GPL-only by virtue of sublicense.
IANAL, though, and if this matters then you should discuss this with a real and unbiased attourney.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Yes everyone, let's all bicker and argue and jump down each other's throats, meanwhile Billy, Stevie, and the other suits are grinning that INFURIATINGLY smug fn suit grin, pleased to see all this.
CHILL THE F OUT AND STOP THE ANIMOSITY, THIS CAN ALL BE WORKED OUT REGARDLESS OF WHAT HAS HAPPENED THUS FAR
SARAVA!
God, quit your whining, Theo and company, and stop with the personal attacks. Your attitude(s) makes me think that all of you as a group are well on the way to being the next SCO. You now gonna try to sue all Linux users and force them to pay you for your "I.P." that is "hidden" in Linux? Or will you just try to sell "TheoSource Licenses" and a "covenant not to sue" at $699.00 a pop? You know, for the same stuff that you licensed under a "total freedom" license that allows anyone to do anything with it? It would be so much better if you guys could just shut down your egos and your mouths for a while, and work constructively on solving any issues re: attribution and dual licensing. I think that you (BSD guys) need to do some homework. Dual licensed software (GPL/BSD) cannot be licensed under both licenses at the same time. They are Incompatible licenses, so it cannot work that way. That means that dual licensed software is an either-or situation - you either use the BSD license OR the GPL license. Can't be anything else. If you use the BSD license, then the GPL verbiage is redundant fluff, and may be removed for clarity's sake. Similarly, if you use the GPL, the BSD verbiage is redundant text, and may be removed as well. You cannot keep them both simultaneously without violating both , in spite of all the strident flame wars on the subject. So, guys, take your lithium, relax, take a deep breath, count to 10, and try, for a change, to do something constructive. I'll bet that if you play nice, the GPL guys will even help you to get your name in the paper, as they understand your need for attribution...
Apparently they were added to some madwifi tree, but that's not an official Linux tree and the appropriate place to flame those guys is on their own website and/or mailing lists not lkml. At any rate, there wasn't and isn't even the remotest chance they would ever be merged into Linus' official source tree.
Nope. Neither the BSD or GPL license allows you to strip the copyright notices/header. That's what happened.
This issue has been blown way out of proportion, not really because of Theo, but really in large part because people keep making ignorant statements that nothing wrong happened, and then there's another story about someone correcting those misconceptions.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
IF you want GPL license and distribute, just do,
somefile.c -- BSD license here, no prob.
somefile.diff -- GPL license here, no prob.
Then you combine the two and make a binary. Then the binary is under GPL license. Period.
Is that simple enough?
Also, you may have a somefile.c under a GPL license, but I'm not sure you can distribute it in source form.
But overall, it does NOT matter if somefile.c + modifications is distributed under GPL. It is NOT usable under BSD anyway. Modifications are GPL. So, you may as well ignore the problem or make sure that upstream distributes originals with BSD license and be done with it.
One word, "conscription." They didn't flee, they moved, the family didn't believe in forced military service. It's really not that hard to google you moron. It'll even tell you that his first computer was a Vic-20.
The real question is:
Is the original author giving the right to anyone who comes into posession of the code the right to use either license? In which case you can't deny downstream users the right to choose the license you don't like.
Or is the original author giving *you* the right to sublicense the work uner another license? In which case you can.
This is a *very* context-specific question. IANAL, but I don't think there is a safe answer, and I would err on the side of not removing hte license.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
The code in question was NEVER under a pure BSD license. It has always been Dual(BSD/GPL). The CHOICE of redistributing under EITHER BSD OR GPL licenses is expressly given by the copyright holder.
check it out:
http://madwifi.org/browser/branches/ath5k/ath5k_base.h
If this were a pure BSD license you would be correct but it's not
"The horror... the horror"
One of these mandatory conditions states that 'Redistribution in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list ...'. Following the argument of the OP, redistribution in binary form is allowed, as long as you allow further redistribution (by including the list of conditions). I'm not sure that this is correct way to interpret it, but this is what the OP was using, but applied to the source. I'm only pointing out that exactly the same would hold for binary distributions.
The Apache license (2.0) explicitly allows you to add or modify license terms. BSD doesn't, and from what I gather from these posts, it is not clear at all if you are allowed to add license terms to BSD code. The license doesn't explicitly allow it, so it seems open for legal interpretation. BSD is a very short license, and as such falls short of actually specifying what is allowed and what isn't. It seems that Theo de Raadt has a different interpretation than the FSF, while people here assume that all is allowed, based on folklore.
You completely misunderstand what you've written. That "alternatively" only applies to the GPL PART of the DUEL license. The only thing that what you've quoted means, is that the code can be under the BSD and the GLP v2 or the BSD and any later version of the GPL i.e. one licenses wording does NOT supersede the other.
You are using "viral" in a different sense from the general use when referring to "viral licenses." The GPL is viral, in the sense that all derivative works must be GPL - no matter who is the owner (even the owner of the copyright is bound to GPL any derivatives of his own making). Copyright itself is not implicitly viral in this sense. German copyright law doesn't require the derivative work to be under the same license, and, as you say, under U.S. copyright law, it depends on the license. While German copyright law itself might be considered viral in a similar way to the GPL, it is only so with respect to ownership, not licensing: there is nothing to stop the owner from licensing the derivative work differently than the original. It would be better to say copyright is "persistent."
The argument in this specific case shouldn't be about any supposed viral nature, anyhow. The Linux developers:
- assumed that they could claim ownership of a derivative work, when in this case they may not be able to.
- attempted to assert as derivative, works which probably don't qualify as such. Together with the foregoing, this led to asserting copyright when they probably didn't have a right to do so.
- attempted to remove the copyright notice and BSD license from portions of their presumed derivative work, which is a violation of the license terms regardless of whether the work was derivative or not.
Ultimately, then, this isn't about relicensing at all. No one involved is contending that, were the work sufficient to be considered derivative, that the derivative work (taken as a whole) couldn't be GPL (the original author's rights under German law aside). They are arguing whether the derivative work being GPL permits the removal of the BSD license/copyright notices from the code. Furthermore, they are arguing over what constitutes a derivative work, and who owns said work.I suspect the parent is a troll.
His whole thread is -1, Flamebait.
Doesn't matter. You don't have to change the terms on code under one license when you combine it with code under another license. The terms on the work as a whole are the union of the terms of the contained components, but this doesn't change the terms on the components if separated again.
BSD doesn't, and from what I gather from these posts, it is not clear at all if you are allowed to add license terms to BSD code.No, you're not. But that's not what happens when you combine it with another license that has more terms. The BSD code doesn't gain any restrictions -- it can be pulled out of the combined work and distributed under BSD terms. The additional restrictions apply to the combined work not because of the BSD code, but because of the other code.
The GPL is a bit different from most in this respect, because it does specify that the resulting combined work may not have additional restrictions beyond its own (in v2, v3 relaxes this in specific ways). BSD doesn't say anything about derivative works, only about the code directly licensed under it.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
... why are you reading Slashdot if you don't like nerds play-acting like lawyers?
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
"Very often I would like to do some integration in the lab, and supply the result to the customer. But the powers-that-be will not let me."
Well then that's not a limitation of the GPL, that's a limitation of the powers-that-be. You see, most legal analysis is done based on prior decisions in case law, and case law changes glacially compared to computing standards. Basing a decision on something other than previous judgments is risky and requires "vision". So, if there is no really big person around willing to step up and take it on the chin, legal advisors will always be behind the curve. On the other hand, as more case law piles up supporting GPL's legal protections, there could be a sudden avalanche of legal consultants willing to advise in its favor, since it won't be so risky.
You can't send a takedown notice to an already printed newspaper.
Well, here's an idea: because such discussions help raise various points, and awareness of them, which some of us wouldn't even consider otherwise when choosing a license.
/. would just shut up for once. I don't know when or why that fashion got started, but it's getting old. That's religion. No, seriously. There is no pre-requisite needed to use your own head.
We're not all lawyers, and such fine points may go right over our heads when choosing a license.
The GPL or BSD license aren't a goal by themselves (except for a few zealots who rarely provide more than lip service), they're _tools_. If I wrote a piece of code, the question isn't what can I do to serve BSD or GPL, the question is which of them serves _me_ best. If I'm not making any money out of it anyway, it might as well try to fit my moral code, or vanity, or whatever.
E.g., if, say, I want my name on that piece of software in perpetuity, then a license which allows removing it (or conversion to a license which does allow it), then I'm not interested in that license. E.g., while I'm somewhat "laissez faire" when it comes to enforcing my own strict moral code on others, conversely I wouldn't go with a license which enforces the opposite of that moral code. I might not generally force you to do the rightest thing, but I sure as heck won't force you to do what I consider the wrong thing.
If none of the existing licenses fit my views, maybe I'll just make up my own or maybe I'll just release the damn thing as public domain. If none of _my_ points of view are served right by either GPL or BSD, then, wth, why would I make a contribution to _that_ crusade.
So, yes, while I probably should see an actual lawyer for the actual license, it's good to hear what problems do other people see. _Especially_ if they're not lawyers. Maybe I was under the same mis-understanding, or maybe their moral code loosely matches mine, or whatever. E.g., if I too was under the misunderstanding that, say, under BSD license noone can remove my name from the credits, but a lawyer went on record to say that someone else (even the original author of some module I contribute to) can do just that, then that just raised a problem I'm very interested in.
Even if they can't provide a legally sound answer, they can, quite often, clarify the _question_. That's equally valuable.
Basically, talking about it is good.
And, no offense, I wish all the "nooo, you're not worthy enough to question these guys. Just trust the authority figures and don't try using your own head!" gang on
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
(That is not the BSD license, but something similar in spirit)
....
The license grants permission from the original copyright holder. A derived work will have multiple copyright holders. In order to distribute the derived work, you need permission from all the copyright holders.
If the other copyright holder gives you permission to distribute it under the conditions described in the GPL, you must fulfill *both* those conditions, and the original conditions from the BSDL. While the original BSDL is in the file, it only represents a permission from one owner, and thus don't give you the right to ignore the conditions on the permission from the other owners.
The conditions on the GPL are much harsher than the conditions on the BSDL, so for practical purposes, a work combined from both GPL and BSDL sources can be distributed under the GPL.
The only caveat is that you can't remove the BSDL *TEXT*, even though the permisions granted are otherwise no longer relevant. But one could argue that even GPL demands that, in its attribution clause.
Of course, the actual case was dual licensed, which normally means that a work is covered by license A *or* B (at the users choice). What I described above was the normal case where multiple licenses apply, and the user must obey license A *and* B.
For a dual license, it it up to the meta-license text to tell whether the user may physically remove the individual license text in a derived work, or of he just have the right to ignore it.
The point of dual-licensing is that you get to choose either of the licenses. If both licenses had to be in effect at the same time then there would effectively be a single license, a combination of the two.
BSD and GPL take effect when the code is distributed. If you receive dual-licensed code under BSD in binary format, you get to choose GPL only when you distribute it, allowing those receiving the code from you to request the source from you.
What seems to be lost in this debate is respect for the original author's intentions...
Say I write a piece of code and want to put a "permissive" license on it. I basically have two choices:
LGPL 2.1 clause 3 says that you can basically decide to replace the LGPL with the GPL at any time. LGPL 3.0 clause 2 effectively says the same thing. Or, in other words, choosing the LGPL explicitly gives users the freedom to relicense under the GPL
By choosing to use a BSD license, an author is basically saying "I don't want this to end up GPL'ed - If I did, I would have used the LGPL instead of the BSD license."
It all comes back to the fundamental difference between the BSD and GPL camps - does freedom include the right to close the source?
For better or worse, I feel that people should respect the intentions of the original author.
It seems to me that taking a BSD-style piece of code and modifying it would allow me to release my modified version under the GPL with the addition of the BSD requirements. Adding the GPL requirements to my modified version doesn't counter anything in the BSD license, and adding the BSD requirements doesn't counter anything in the GPL license. The key point is that any derivations from my modified version would be bound by the GPL, and not just the BSD.
No, if you make a binary library, you are free (as in freedom) to distribute it (anyway you like, even for lots of money) you don't have to distribute it for free (as in beer). So much is clear.
..."
Further, either a) or b) applies:
a) as this is a derived work, you can distribute it under your own terms, provided you include the license in the required places (docs).
b) as a derived work of BSD code, you can not add your own terms, and whomever you sold it to may then redistribute it, even for free (as in beer.)
I am quite sure that a) applies, as that's precisely what allows companies like Apple and Microsoft to use BSD code. I am sure they can afford lawyers that have verified the validity of this argument.
However, for the source, it is clear that redistribution of modified or unmodified source is allowed if and only if it is done with the BSD license. This means that all the distributed source is redistributable under the same terms. As you are not required to offer it free of charge, you can try to profit from your redistribution, but the recipient is not bound by any of your terms, and may in turn redistribute for free (as in beer.) You could just as well distribute it for free (as in beer) yourself.
I think you could fairly say that whereas the GPL is a virus, in that any project using it gets infected, the BSDL is simply resistant - you can't infect it with other terms, but you can use it symbiotically under other terms. Mitochondrial DNA, anyone?
Wikipedia has a paragraph under the Public Domain entry which says, quoting Nimmer:
"It is axiomatic that material in the public domain is not protected by copyright, even when incorporated into a copyrighted work.
This speaks volumes to me. It means that even when you create a derived work using a PD work, the PD work may be extracted as being PD. Actually this comes as a bit of a surprise to me, as I know that Project Gutenberg has spent great effort to reproduce copyright-expired texts from books that were old enough to be out of copyright themselves. If the Nimmer quote above holds, then you could simply type the text in from any readily available print.
Anyway, my guess is that if this applies to PD work, then it would also apply to BSD work similarly incorporated into a work of different license. That's the reason I call it symbiotic: you can use it, even profit from it through your own license terms, you just can't restrict any part of it that isn't yours (including modifications to such parts even if they are technically yours).
-Lasse
Computer logic and legal logic are not the same thing.
If code is released dual-licensed, and one license says the text establishing the dual license cannot be modified, removing reference to either license is just not legal.
Dual-licensing is legal abomination in any case except the case of the perl/gpl license. In that case, the Artistic license leaves _ambiguities_ that would throw a wrench in any courtroom activities, in order to allow what we might call "preaching" to occur. If those ambiguities are not satisfactory, the GPL can be used, allowing a judge to resolve the ambiguities.
The BSD copyright declaration has some ambiguities when viewed as a license, but it does not have the ambiguities of the Artistic license. Moreover, when viewed as a copyright declaration which happens to extend a license (which is the correct way to view it), any ambiguity which would allow the GPL to take precedence disappears.
The only possible benefit would be to try to oil the issue of linking, but that is simply not an issue. You can link GPLed could to code under BSD without any conflict, and the resultant object can be legally asserted to be under GPL. That is because you know which license you are dealing with by looking at the top of the file, and the GPL allows linking to code that allows community-oriented restrictions to be placed on the object.
But the BSD copyright declaration says that the copyright declaration _goes_ _with_ _the_ _code_ _text_ _or_ _it_ _ain't_ _legal_. Thus, every recepient of a derived piece of text _must_ receive that copyright declaration.
Well, there is one other possible thing that can be done with this, and that is, if every line, or, rather, every fragment can be identified as to which license it is under, it might make sense to dual-license. But that is just plain unwieldly in most cases.
When you're mixing BSD and GPL, the best thing (and only thing that is going to prevent court cases from dragging out into the eternities) is to keep each file pure.
joudanzuki
(emphasis added below)
* Copyright (c) CCYY YOUR NAME HERE
*
* Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any
* purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
* copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.
*
* THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES
* WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
* MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR
* ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
* WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN
* ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF
* OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
*/
This would seem to indicate that so long as the appropriate notice is still attached to the file, then any restrictions on redistribution the deriver likes may be added to a derivative work. Unlike other licenses (e.g. GPL), the addition of added restrictions is never mentioned, nor is any other license. Given that binary code may be licensed from BSD source without even providing the source, it is clear that some relicensing may occur (the BSD license does not specify anything other than retention of copyright and permission notice). It does not ever state that you must provide the code to others you provide it to under any terms of the BSD license - as long as the notice appears in the file (showing that you got the code under the BSD license legally) then you could (again IANAL, just pointing out some problematic wording) do something like this --
"This Code is licensed under the Microsoft Public License. This code is derived from code licensed to me under the following terms:
"
because it meets the stated requirements of the license. It provides copies of the copyright notice and of the permission statement in the file. That, per the plain wording of the license, is all that is required. Now - there are likely legal implications of this license that I do not understand, but if you want more restriction on what people can do with your code than simply having to keep a certain block of text in each file (not even binding downstream licensors to do the same, if you nitpick about the fact that ALL the license requires it that a person who got the code under the BSD license has to do is include a particular block of text in each file) then you should use a different license, or at least a more carefully worded version of this one. The fact that the BSD license was designed to allow closing source on a project means that it's wording does not explicitly prevent license changes too - if I accept a license, then that does not necessarily mean that I am restricted to licensing that code out under the same license. For i
No, no, no, no. This is completely 100% wrong.
The GPL does not in any way depend on contracts. The GPL depends on copyright law and license terms.
Under copyright law, you default to having no permission to distribute copies of copyrighted works, such as software. The GPL says that the rightsholder is willing to grant blanket permission to redistribute to anyone willing to follow the terms of the license.
See that "Preview" button?
There are many different perspectives and goals in the combined "open source" and "free software" environment. It is worrisome.
I think that most of the truly sincere individuals have basically the same goal, but see it differently.
I think the danger comes from the people who are not sincere and seek only to exploit the work of others, and to the extreme exclude the very authors from benefiting from their work.
Admit it or not, it is possible for a corporation like Microsoft to take free software, change it enough to make it incompatible with the original source, push it out to their monopoly platform, and create an environment in which the original source is almost useless.
Also, it is more than possible to create FUD and legal problems around "open source" and "free" software with patent claims and litigation.
These are very real problems for both BSD licensed projects as well as GPL licensed projects. The BSD licensed code, IMHO, is far more in danger than is GPL code. The GPL v3 seeks to protect the code and user better.
Is there a combined "open source" and "free software" community? If so, we need to figure out how to join forces. If not, we need to understand where any (if any) overlap exists and work there.
Personally, I don't like the BSD license because it allows a Microsoft to take code and hide it away. Sure, I can see the benefits of BSD, because I could take a PostgreSQL and make Joe's SQLDB and never pay a dime or give a line of code back, but I don't feel that is right, and I know that when someone else does it, it would bother me.
So, it is a conundrum. We need to come up with an agreed "basic" set of goals.
But he's being a total dick about it. And if he thinks that doesn't matter, then I've already seen code in the wild with a BSD-style license with the explicit caveat that it may not be relicensed as GPL/LGPL. How that for winning hearts and minds?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
You can be the most talented, the smartest, most gifted, etc. person in the world. But if you can't communicate effectively or if you drive away your intended audience, what good are your skills?
Skills, they are nice.
People and communicating with them, that is important.
-M
If someone takes my code and uses it without giving his improvements back, because he does not want that others use my product, I would not call him an ally.
Ok how do you define community?
The people who benefit from the product? Why are closed-source implementors excluded from the FSF community then? They use linux or gcc too.
The people who can modify the code? Well even here closed-source implementors are included. You don't have to give anything away for free, you are just not allowed to distribute if you don't want to. Like google.
The people who can distribute modifications? Well then the FSF community only includes GPL developers. Every other development is excluded. And to be even more detailed the GPLv2 and GPLv3 developers don't share the same community too. (and I am assuming you thought of a similar definition)
Which also stops the author from changing the licence to something the FSF doesn't like.
And nothing in his letter addresses any issues like the continued posting of plagiarized code on kernel.org
Seeing as how they are oh so willing to run roughshod over non GPL licensed projects, go check out their background. It seems pretty clear that the SFLC is just a thinly veiled FSF spinoff. It's members were GPL v3 authors. It almost appears to be a dedicated legal gestapo arm of the FSF - and by FSF I mean the FSF - not Linux.
I think they are named the SFLC just so that the FSF can claim not to be involved in their activities. I think their real
agenda is to put forward the FSF's new licenses. I think Linux developers, particularly those who do not like the GPL version 3, should be very wary of such claims that "We are in it for all open source projects" - It sure sounds wonderful to say that. Just as wonderful as good old Adolf saying "We'd never trample on the rights of anyone outside of Czechloslovakia - we're only making it safe for the Germans who live there"
Words are cheap Eben. The actions of the SFLC on the other hand, seem to show that there are two kinds of open source projects - those that use the GPL, and those that the SFLC would like to help assimilate. This does not look like "Helping
all projects" - this smells like a hidden agenda. I think the SFLC is rotten with a hidden agenda, and I don't think it's an
agenda of the linux or BSD projects. It sounds like the FSF's dirty work. Stuff they don't want to be directly associated with.
Replying to AC...
If he wanted everyone who used or improved his code to give something back, he would have licensed it under GPL.
Not that it's right to strip the license , but the case in point is a diff that was not accepted into the kernel. He is just whining.
He can't really accept that Linux gets all the attention, more developers and more users when *BSD, gets very little of it.
I tell why: The GPL allowed an ecosystem to flourish around the code. BSD can't do that.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
IANAL....
Sure, it applies to the code once modified. But it may not apply to those modifications. Given the history of allowing companies like Microsoft to use BSD-licensed code in this way, it would seem difficult to suggest that this is not the intent.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
my friend is the balanced argument. Although I would argue that there are those in your community that *do* feel the lack of two-way contribution is the issue (which I don't pretend to judge).
While reusing the BSD code, even with the more restrictive GPL license is permitted, you're right regarding the (il)legality of stripping the BSD license and associated copyright notice. Which, if anything positive has come out of this whole mess, is much more clear to me and hopefully more in the GPL community.
That said aside from the above example I'm not sure when/where else this has occurred. Considering the reasonably fast response to the unused atheros patch I can't see how if this *is* an continuing issue it can seriously be considered one that wouldn't be responded to.
And you have to remember the "Linux" community, whether you agree with the GPL or not, are (at least technically) people who do believe in the right to protect and license work, or the GPL would be useless. That includes your right and even Theo's. Stealing is not something I think you'd find anyone in the Linux community would condone (or even can, legally).
Anyway, hopefully soon we can move on. I mean it's been fun. Hell, even informative. But it's started getting just plain silly.
Quack, quack.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I am not so sure. IANAL though.
It is aguably the case with static linking (though again, the combination could be argued to be a mere collected work).
However, the argument that dynamic linking creates derivative works has a) never been tested in court an b) creates some serious issues for copyright law as it relates to interoperability.
There have been some interesting law school theses which are of interesting reading in this area.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Ok, suppose I take a nice BSD-licensed program. I find three bugs and fix them.
One bug was caused by an = instead of an ==.
The other two were caused by typos in variable names in null pointer checks.
I correct the typos. My changes are strictly functional and offer no expressive elements, therefore the whole work is still under the author's original license.
Now, suppose I refactor a bunch of code. Most likely I have now added expressive elements so I now have a copyright to enforce.
IANAL, TINLA, etc.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I won't bother trying to make you understand, I'll simply tell you that you're a fool for believing as you do and let you dismiss me as a troll for calling you a name.
While I personally agree and think dynamically linked programs should be exempt, the FSF doesn't think so and would most likely go after you if you tried it with something like GNU Readline (a GPLed library).
More to the point, it's the entire reason that the LGPL exists. I wouldn't be surprised if the GPL used that as a reason if such a suit was ever brought up.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Yes, that is why I said that we'd need a way to differentiate it. If you read the posting history you'd see that someone had suggested that I was suggesting BSD was viral; the reply was intended to show that no, it's not BSD that is viral but that it's Copyright Laws that are viral.
Yes, German and French copyright laws are different and authors have substantial rights in derivative works. The copyright stops you from modifying the license! You are not granted the right to change the license! You are only granted the right to make a derivative work and not change the license with BSD specifically saying that the license must be left intact as is. The ISC license, which has fewer paragraphs, grants you zero rights to adjust the license even in derivative works.
Your other points are interesting. I'm not sure how accurate though.
However, it seems that dual BSD and GPL licenses are completely at odds with each other and it is folly for anyone to issue a dual license. They are just setting the groundwork for a legal mess for themselves or subsequent developers.
What needs to change are the rapacious terms of the GPL that make it viral in the sense you spoke about, in the BORG sense of assimilation of code. What the heck is GPL forcing software that is linked with it to be under GPL; absolutely insane and communistic to the max. Hail Supreme Leader of the GNU Collective: Stallman. Join the collective at your own peril.
You mean it, sigh. Now you have devolved to making veiled threats. Sigh. As I said all you people what to do, as evidenced from your aggressive comments directed towards one who rocks your world with some facts, is inflame the discussion. The evidence shows that you are the flame baiters. My mistake was thinking that you wanted a dialog.
Please up your standard levels.
The term "ad hominem" is very descriptive of the attacks that the two of you have perpetrated rather than having a high quality discussion.
Please stop the ad hominem attacks and the veiled threats. Thanks guys.
I don't disagree (and yes, I did read the whole thread). You are very right in pointing out that it is German law, not the BSDL which is at least partly at issue here, and I wasn't trying to dispute that. I just wouldn't use the term "viral" for copyright itself. The term viral was first applied to the GPL because of the very "rapacious terms" you mention, which makes it different even from German and French copyright.
There is nothing is German or French copyright law which would prevent the original author from issuing derivative work under a different license than the original, whereas the GPL does just that. It's this assimilation of code that made people call it the "General Public Virus" in the first place.
I think you're spot on about dual licensing. I have often thought that the whole mess might have been avoided if they'd just left the "advertising clause" in (though it had its own problems). At least then, dual licensing would have been impossible, because the 4-clause BSDL is incompatible with the GPL (according to the FSF).
The GPL is never going to abandon its viral nature, because its proponents really believe that they are on a moral crusade. Software has a right to be free, they say. Those of us who think that's a tad silly, and who care more about granting rights to people than to inanimate code, really need to do a good job of promoting the BSD model in the future. It is far more commercially viable, especially with what the FSF is trying to do with GPL v3, and I fear that OSS may suffer if we don't make it clear, especially to the IBM's and HP's of the world and their clients, that this man (RMS) in no way represents us all.
Computer logic and legal logic are not the same thing.
If code is released dual-licensed, and one license says the text establishing the dual license cannot be modified, removing reference to either license is just not legal.
Sorry, that's wrong.
Here's an analogy. You go into a car dealership, and the salesman shows you two different contracts. He says that if you want a car, you'll have to choose between them. You choose one. YOU ARE NOT BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THE OTHER ONE. It doesn't matter what the other one says. It could say "The purchaser is contractually obligated to choose this contract" and the buyer would still not be compelled.
Simple principle. You accept the terms of one contract. You reject the terms of another. The dealer gave you that option.
Same principle. You accept the terms of one license. You reject the terms of another. The licensor gave you that option.
After all, I am strangely colored.
And I am not aware of any legal threats in that area.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
sigs are hazardous to your health
The GPL is never going to abandon its viral nature, because its proponents really believe that they are on a moral crusade.
... "this list of conditions"!
That is why they are cult members, a moral and political crusade using double speak propaganda such as "freedom" to attain their goals.
Software has a right to be free, they say.
Software has no rights, human beings do. They value software more than they value humans.
The GPL license is inherently incompatible with many licenses including the ISC and BSD licenses. This is due to the rapacious and BORG like assimilation design of the GPL gnusance.
Let's read the BSD terms once again (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_license#Terms).
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
There is NO GRANT of any rights to change the license terms given by the authors. In fact it specifically states that the following conditions must be met. They must be important, so let's look at them.
Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
That's interesting, they are if you redistribute the source you must obey a few simple rules. Keep the copyright intact. Oh, this is interesting, it says "must retain". Very important those two words are.
What's this "this list of conditions" that they talk about? It's the specific list of conditions and no other list of conditions. This means one exact list as spelled out in the license. No changes. No additions. For if you made changes or additions you'd be violating those two magic words, "must retain"
The disclaimer is - in this discussion - easy, it's just that bit of legal mumbo jumbo at the end.
Ok, so it's now very clear that the license grants the right to distribute the source code, or binary code (as the next clause specifies).
In fact the license simply speaks of "redistributions" that are "with or without" modifications provided that the license is "retained"!
The BSD license MUST BE RETAINED EVEN IN DERIVATIVE WORKS!!! If you change the license in a derivative work you no longer have a right to make said derivative work as you are in violation of the license terms which clearly state that you "MUST RETAIN" the license as the basis for working with the code: your license terms are null and void and without effect.
The US Copyright office (http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.html#derivative) has this to say about derivative works:
"A typical example of a derivative work received for registration in the Copyright Office is one that is primarily a new work but incorporates some previously published material. This previously published material makes the work a derivative work under the copyright law. To be copyrightable, a derivative work must be different enough from the original to be regarded as a "new work" or must contain a substantial amount of new material. Making minor changes or additions of little substance to a preexisting work will not qualify the work as a new version for copyright purposes. The new material must be original and copyrightable in itself. Titles, short phrases, and format, for example, are not copyrightable. WHO MAY PREPARE A DERIVATIVE WORK? Only the owner of copyright in a work has the right to prepare, or to authorize someone else to create, a new version of that work. The owner is generally the author or someone who has obtained rights from the author."
Ok, to cut to the chase the BSD license terms "permit" modifications and redistributions "provided" that "this [specific] list of conditions are met"! This means that the authors are granting others the right to make derivative works AS LONG AS THE EXACT LICENSE TERMS are "retained"! This means that ALL code under a BSD license MUST be published under the BSD license - if they are being redistributed that is.
This means
The ironing is delicious.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Wouldn't that preclude including BSD code in proprietary software just as much as including it in GPL software? If so, then that reading of the license is certainly not the understanding of the people who issued it in the first place. If that were the case, why hasn't UCB sued the pants off of Microsoft, Sun, or Apple? Don't tell me they don't redistribute in source form, either, because they do, albeit under a NDA. Besides, binary distributions have to present all these things in the "documentation or other materials" supplied by the vendor. The consistent understanding of the BSD license for two decades has been that derivative works could be licensed under different terms from the original code, so long as the copyright notice, license terms, and disclaimer of warranty pertaining to the original code were retained as well. You are reading things into the license that aren't there. The fact that you must "retain" the license terms does not preclude you from adding new ones - pertaining only to the derivative work, as long as you can actually assert copyright over the derivative work. No where does the BSDL say that modified code must be distributed under "these exact license terms and no others," only the GPL does that. It says the license terms must be "retained," which simply means that you must not remove them, in acknowledgment of the rights of the author of the original code. If your interpretation of the license were correct, I would expect the majority of *BSD users to be clamoring to their respective projects and to UCB for the license to be changed to conform to what the intent was, rather than take the path of the FSF, and I expect it would happen, too. If we start insisting that people who write derivative works based on the BSDL have to license their code as BSDL as well, then we become no better than the GNU crowd. In fact, we become worse by decrying their viral license while not being able to decide whether ours is or isn't. We become hypocrites and fence-sitters. The beauty of the BSDL is that it doesn't shackle the author of a derivative work. German and French copyright law may, but since I am neither a French nor a German citizen, there's not much I can do about that. If we loathe the GPL so much, then we have to preserve everything about the BSDL which makes it unlike the GPL. Otherwise, we are cutting off our nose to spite our face. This isn't what the argument in this case is about, anyway. According to the mail logs that were posted, the argument here is, as I said before, about A) people asserting copyright over non-derivative works, B) the fact that, in this case, the ownership of derivative works would belong to the original author anyway, C) based on A & B, people altering asserting copyright over, and altering the license to, code which they didn't own, D) removing the original copyright notice, license terms, and disclaimer of warranty. I have yet to see Theo say anything in those logs which would indicate that, had this been a derivative work based on original code written in the U.S., that the authors of the derivative work couldn't have wrapped the whole thing in GPL, assuming they had retained the copyright notice, license terms, and disclaimer of warranty belonging to the original code.
[Sorry for the double-post. I accidentally posted in HTML on reflex after writing the other one, and previewing it, in plain text because I was lazy. I never do this, but it would be absolutely Hellish to read that way, so here it is again.]
Wouldn't that preclude including BSD code in proprietary software just as much as including it in GPL software? If so, then that reading of the license is certainly not the understanding of the people who issued it in the first place. If that were the case, why hasn't UCB sued the pants off of Microsoft, Sun, or Apple? Don't tell me they don't redistribute in source form, either, because they do, albeit under a NDA. Besides, binary distributions have to present all these things in the "documentation or other materials" supplied by the vendor. The consistent understanding of the BSD license for two decades has been that derivative works could be licensed under different terms from the original code, so long as the copyright notice, license terms, and disclaimer of warranty pertaining to the original code were retained as well.
You are reading things into the license that aren't there. The fact that you must "retain" the license terms does not preclude you from adding new ones - pertaining only to the derivative work, as long as you can actually assert copyright over the derivative work. No where does the BSDL say that modified code must be distributed under "these exact license terms and no others," only the GPL does that. It says the license terms must be "retained," which simply means that you must not remove them, in acknowledgment of the rights of the author of the original code. If your interpretation of the license were correct, I would expect the majority of *BSD users to be clamoring to their respective projects and to UCB for the license to be changed to conform to what the intent was, rather than take the path of the FSF, and I expect it would happen, too.
If we start insisting that people who write derivative works based on the BSDL have to license their code as BSDL as well, then we become no better than the GNU crowd. In fact, we become worse by decrying their viral license while not being able to decide whether ours is or isn't. We become hypocrites and fence-sitters. The beauty of the BSDL is that it doesn't shackle the author of a derivative work. German and French copyright law may, but since I am neither a French nor a German citizen, there's not much I can do about that. If we loathe the GPL so much, then we have to preserve everything about the BSDL which makes it unlike the GPL. Otherwise, we are cutting off our nose to spite our face.
This isn't what the argument in this case is about, anyway. According to the mail logs that were posted, the argument here is, as I said before, about A) people asserting copyright over non-derivative works, B) the fact that, in this case, the ownership of derivative works would belong to the original author anyway, C) based on A & B, people altering asserting copyright over, and altering the license to, code which they didn't own, D) removing the original copyright notice, license terms, and disclaimer of warranty. I have yet to see Theo say anything in those logs which would indicate that, had this been a derivative work based on original code written in the U.S., that the authors of the derivative work couldn't have wrapped the whole thing in GPL, assuming they had retained the copyright notice, license terms, and disclaimer of warranty belonging to the original code.
Quite right. I'm not sure what I was thinking before (other than that I was tired). I concede the point. If someone wants to call German copyright viral (assuming the prior characterization of its nature is correct), then, I won't object any more.
I suppose this is why some of the die-hard-FSF fanatics (including RMS) have gotten irritated when people have released GPL'd code and haven't assigned the copyright to said code to the FSF (as in the case of XEmacs or Linux).
No problem for the double posting, it's a fault of slashdot's choice of tools for inputing post comments.
Microsoft, or any commercial company, has no problems with using BSD licensed code within their system. They don't have to publish the original code they used or versions that have their modifications in it. They are free to do what they do with it. They can link with BSD licensed code just fine without it infecting other files under their own copyright. If they publish the source it must be correctly attributed. The binary too.
I'm reading the BSD License in the context of copyright laws and the rights that they provide. Yes, the fact that you "must retain" the license terms exactly means that you can't alter the agreement. I explained that clearly in the prior posting in this sub thread.
THE BSDL SPECIFICALLY SAYS THAT YOU MAY MAKE MODIFICATIONS AND REDISTRIBUTE THEM **PROVIDED** THAT RETAIN THE LIST OF CONDITIONS. If you modify any of the conditions, by adding to them, changing their wording, or deleting from them you may NOT use the software. It is very clear actually about this. As regards to derivative works, the original authors control whether or not you are permitted to make a derived work. They have given their permission in the BSDL for you to redistribute your modified versions - whether or not your work qualifies as a derivative work - ONLY under the provision that you adhere to the license terms as spelled out exactly in the license. No where are you granted a right to add new license terms!
Authors have the right to control who makes derivative works and under what terms that they do that, which they clearly do in the BSD license: they never grant the right to modify the license.
Remember it's not just the four or five paragraphs of the BSD license you must contend with, it's the principles of Copyright Law! That's were these rights are specified.
Just because people make mistakes in how they work with BSD licensed code thinking that they do what they want doesn't mean that they will get away with it forever. Authors will eventually assert their rights in court.
The good folks over at the GPL gnusance propaganda organization, FSFI (Free Software Fondation, Inc.), will eventually end up in court if they keep up assimilating BSD code and BSD derived code without first obtaining permission from the original authors.
But they do distribute said code, even if it is under NDA. The license says "distribute" not "publish." Furthermore, following your line of logic, the BSDL should apply to their entire work, too, because they still have to provide the copyright notice, license terms, and disclaimer of warranty in the documentation. The license certainly doesn't say that they can add additional terms there, either.
I think we're not in agreement on what "retain" means. Since the license says only "retain," and not "retain exactly," I tend to believe that it merely means "don't remove." You are maintaining that "retain" means "don't add anything either." If it actually said "retain exactly" I might be inclined to agree with you.
Obviously, the author has the right to determine who may make a derivative work. I don't dispute that. The author of BSD-licensed code allows anyone to make a derivative work, provided that: if they distribute the code, they "retain" the copyright notice, license terms, and disclaimer of warranty that were on the original; and if they distribute binaries, they provide the same notice, terms, and disclaimer with the documentation. It's what these thing apply to that we disagree on. The consensus opinion, and the clear intent of the people at UCB who wrote the license in the first place, has been that these things, when appearing in the derivative work, apply only to those parts which belong to the original work, and not to the derivative work as a whole. You appear to be claiming that the BSD license (and by logical extension, BTW, the original author's copyright*) continues to apply to the derivative work as a whole, which would make it a viral license.
Show me a case where one of the CSRG people has agreed with your reading. Remember, the intent of the license issuer is usually taken into account, as well as the letter of the license. Nothing I have seen has ever indicated that UCB had any intention to retain ownership over derivative works, or to force derivative works to be distributed under the BSD license. If this had been their intent, it would have come up in the AT&T case (it would have made the University's counterclaims much stronger), but the only thing that came up there was AT&T removing the UCB copyright, etc. Furthermore, if your reading is correct, it is not only the license terms which cannot be changed, but the copyright notice, in which case the *BSD projects have also violated the license by adding their own names to that of the Regents of the University of California, Berkeley in the copyright notices.
As I said before, I strongly suspect that before we saw lawsuits over this get very far, we would see UCB re-write the license to rectify the situation (just as they did when the advertising clause became an issue). Most BSD users do not want to see a war with the FSF, especially if it means becoming just like them.
* That the copyright may do this anyway in some jurisdictions (e.g., Germany), I do not dispute. That it does so as a consequence of the word "retain" in the BSDL, I do dispute. In fact, I strongly suspect that the license would have been written differently, so as to explicitly disclaim ownership over derivative works, had the lawyers at UCB been thinking about non-U.S. jurisdictions.
Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
The above sentence from the BSD License is quite clear. "Redistribution of source code must retain this list of conditions" is a shorter direct version of the sentence with the other items in the list removed for clarity on this point.
must retain this list of conditions is speaking about one list of conditions specifically, no other lists, but only the one that follows in the subsequent text of the license. As soon as you change the list of conditions it no longer is same "this list of conditions" that follows - it's a different other list but not the same list that follows! The right to redistribute a derived work is based upon "this list of conditions" and when it changes into some other list you loose your grant to "redistribute with or without modifications".
Furthermore, as you are barred from making alterations to the license you are barred from adding to, changing, or removing any part of "this list of conditions". This is a kicker that makes it much much harder to say that you can do what you want with it. Modify the BSD License and you violate it's terms thus you loose your grant to redistribute the derived work in question.
The authors have rights in the derived works derived from Copyright Law. The BSD license doesn't take away or give away these rights.
;--)
The license says you can't change the license, including preventing you from changing it's license terms. This applies to all changes regardless of whether or not it is a derived work. That's the meaning of what is said.
The issue of ammending the copyright in a set of changes that qualify as a derived work is interesting. Certainly if the changes qualify for copyright they have rights in their changes (and no rights in the original authors work which they are deriving from) then they should be allowed to have their copyright amended. It would need to be done in such a way as to indicate what changes were made and in such a way that doesn't alter the original authors license.
Now since the changes are being merged into a derived work it's license must be followed as a result of Copyright Law and the way the BSD license is worded otherwise you loose your grant to redistribute the derived work.
Many authors might allow you to dual license the software, that's their right. Get it in writing though as the BSD license terms read from a view of clarity and precision don't allow that as it stands.
Ultimately, if you are taking anthers work and wanting to make significant changes to the license you'd be well advised to simply talk it over with them and get their permission, if they are willing to give it. Get it in writing signed. That's what snail mail is for for those of you who've never sent an actual letter.
Again I say that you read more into the license than is there. You can "retain this list of conditions" and add another one to it. As long as those conditions are still there, then "this list" is still there. "This list" is no different from saying "these conditions" - it's not in exclusive language, and had that been the intent this would be a very badly written license.
You've deemphasized the part about "the above copyright notice," but it's essential to understanding the meaning of the license. You can't argue that "retain" applies in an exclusive manner (prohibiting additions) to the license terms, but an inclusive manner (permitting additions) to the copyright. Either it means you are permitted to add attributions and terms, or are prohibited from adding either. Don't tell me that "this list" is somehow more restrictive than "the above...notice." If it is clear then, from over two decades of use, that the provision in regard to the copyright notice is inclusive, then it must logically also be inclusive with regard to the list of conditions.
Furthermore, you ignore my main point: that, in more than two decades of use, no one from either UCB or the *BSD projects has maintained this reading you propose. I say again, that if this were what the license terms meant by "retain," then it applies just as much to "the above copyright notice," as it does to "this list of conditions." In which case, the *BSD projects have themselves violated the license. Claims like that would put BSD right back into the legal Limbo it was in in 1992. Since I don't see UCB claiming that (thank Heaven), then I am going to continue believing that your interpretation is different from UCB's.
And that is the kicker, because if your reading is correct, then the only entity with any standing to bring a claim with regard to the lion share of BSDL software is UCB, because they will have retained copyright to not only the code up through 4.4BSD, but anything and everything derived from that code.
No, it says you must "retain" the license terms and the "above" copyright. You have no more right to amend the copyright than you have to add to the license terms. As you yourself said, further up thread, under U.S. copyright law the ownership of derivative works is dependent on the license the original code was issued under. If the BSD license does not allow amending the copyright - and if it does not allow adding to the license terms, then this must be the case (because the same word "retain" governs both) - then the author of the original work holds sole claim to the derivative work. You can't have it both ways.
You still refuse to address the fact that UCB and the *BSD projects have conducted themselves for over 20 years in a way which is at odds with your reading of the license. Unless you can show me where they take your position on that issue, I will consider my position secure.
No, it says you must "retain" the license terms and the "above" copyright.
I don't know why you are saying "No", since you are saying the same thing as I in that sentence.
A lawyer will tell you to tread carefully when dealing with the future of your program code. A lawyer will also tell you that they only deal with specific cases that require legal advice.
My advice, proceed carefully and seek legal council from a law firm that has experience with international copyright laws, the berne convention and true-freedom licenses - as well as closed source, open source licenses and the worse of all, the pernicious assimilation oriented communistic commune-software licenses of the double speak named corporation, FSF, with it's rapacious GPL - to put it succinctly: the GNUsance cult.
Under US Copyright Law the author of a derived work does have copyright to their enhancements (if they are substantial enough to qualify for copyright); the original authors of course keep their original ownership. Under German and French copyright that may be quite different with the original authors holding all the rights. These rights may be in effect in other countries like the USA due to the Berne Convention.
Read and learn the Copyright Laws, Court cases, Berne Convention and License terms to protect yourself from legal problems with your code or code that you are attempting to use (or assimilate if you have devious plans on it).
ONLY IF your changes qualify for a copyright you're creating a derivative work; since significant changes are copyrightable you have a right to add a copyright notice for your changes ONLY. However, since you are using the work under a granting of conditional permission from the BSD License you can't add, modify or delete any of the license terms! Unless you get permission from the original authors!!! (Get it in writing).
Under the ISC License it's Copyright Law that clearly blocks you from modifying the license terms.
Now, this is important, ALMOST ALL changes that open source, communal source (GPL), or true freedom developers (BSD) make are insubstantial when compared to the whole work and thus do NOT qualify for a new copyright and thus do not form a new derivative work under copyright law.
This has serious implications for almost all open source, truly freedom source, and yes especially for commune software (GPL) due to their assimilation BORG cult attitude.
Consulting a lawyer you'll find out that it's recommended that the "contributors" of non-copyrightable changes make said changes a "gift" to the program/project in question. It's then entirely up to the original authors if they wish to amend the copyright with the contributors name or include the contributor on a list of contributors somewhere.
I suspect that the lineage of many open source programs, true freedom programs and most of all, GPL commune software is highly suspect and may in fact be contrary to the original authors copyright and license terms.
By the way, I've not refused to address anything - I am free to reply as I choose.
It's irrelevant how you perceive how the UCB and *BSD projects have conducted themselves over N years. They are free to allow more liberal usage of their code licensed. Just because a project who uses a BSD license has a liberal policy that might not be as controlling as a legal interpretation of the license terms doesn't change the legal reading of the BSD license terms.
I am simply reading Copyright Law, Court Decisions, and the BSD License (and ISC and similar licenses) to understand from a software developers and a lawyers perspective what they mean and their impact to developers and users alike.
Just because the GPL cult members or others think that you can do anything with BSD code including altering the license without permission doesn't mean that they are correct about that. In fact I've shown clearly that no one has a legal right to alter the license in anyway except the original aut
You can "retain this list of conditions" and add another one to it. As long as those conditions are still there, then "this list" is still there. "This list" is no different from saying "these conditions" - it's not in exclusive language, and had that been the intent this would be a very badly written license.
You are deeply mistaken. No where does the BSD License or Copyright Law give you any grant to modify the license. In fact they both say you can't!
You've deemphasized the part about "the above copyright notice," but it's essential to understanding the meaning of the license. You can't argue that "retain" applies in an exclusive manner (prohibiting additions) to the license terms, but an inclusive manner (permitting additions) to the copyright. Either it means you are permitted to add attributions and terms, or are prohibited from adding either. Don't tell me that "this list" is somehow more restrictive than "the above...notice." If it is clear then, from over two decades of use, that the provision in regard to the copyright notice is inclusive, then it must logically also be inclusive with regard to the list of conditions.
While your argument might sound logical, it's pure nonsense from a legal point of view. You fail to comprehend. Law doesn't work the way you think programmer.
In the USA and some other countries but not in all countries, the author of a derivative work may gain a Copyright IF AND ONLY IF THEIR WORK QUALIFIES by being different enough or having substantial enough changes. This then entitles them by law to add a copyright notice to the derived work as long as it's clear that their copyright is ONLY relevant to their substantial changes. They can't alter the existing license or copyright notice. So it would be inappropriate to add their copyright DIRECTLY after the original authors notice.
It would be difficult to argue before a judge that the subsequent authors, once they have successfully demonstrated that they are entitled to a derivative work copyright in the work, wouldn't be entitled to mark their copyright with a notice appropriately applied to the work.
Now it may be prudent to resolve any question or concerns you have about this by contacting the original authors and negotiate how the new copyright notice should be applied and the changes described clearly so people know who owns what.
It's also prudent for projects to keep an accurate and redundant copy of all changes to their project, who made them, who gifted what, who asserts copyrights in the work, etc... for resolving any legal issues.
I really don't care at all about UCB that much. UCB may have given permission to alter the license terms! Not all projects will! I don't know all the facts in that matter. It's not relevant to interpreting how to conduct yourself properly in accordance with copyright laws and the license terms, especially for projects that you are making any significant efforts into.
It's clear that with the aggressive assimilation policy coming out of the FSF Inc and as implemented by it's gnusance cult membership that many authors who choose true freedom for their software using the ISC or BSD licenses (or other similar licenses) that the GPL BORG MENACE must be stopped from absorbing their software!
THE GPL IS A THREAT TO ALL FREE SOFTWARE! REPORT ALL VIOLATIONS BY GPL BORG CULT MEMBERS TO THE NEAREST BSD/ISC NEWS GROUP OR BLOG OR TO SLASHDOT OR TO THE POLICE OR TO THE ORIGINAL AUTHORS OF THE SOFTWARE IN QUESTION.
ALL DUAL LICENSED BSD AND GPL SOFTWARE MUST BE REVIEWED TO ENSURE THAT THE ORIGINAL AUTHORS HAVE AUTHORIZED SAID DUAL LICENSE.
Note that it has yet to be determined what impact dual licenses have. Use them with extreme caution as if they were radio active. Protect yourself and your software from the GPL BORG MENACE.
No, it's quite relevant. It's not about enforcement policy, it's about what the most common legal interpretation of the license is. These entities have lawyers in their employ, and their interpretation is critical to knowing what the license means, especially since UCB wrote the license. If your interpretation is correct, why haven't they at least told the *BSD projects to stop amending the copyright on files derived from original *BSD code? Lax enforcement can lead to loss of rights, as AT&T learned at the hands of UCB/BSDi, years ago. The *BSD projects aren't interpreting the license one way and enforcing it another, either. They wouldn't have amended the copyright unless they had legal opinions in favour. "Retain" can mean multiple things, as most any lawyer will say. I say again: the consistent, legal interpretation, for over twenty years, has been that "retain" simply means "don't remove." The fact is that you are virtually alone in your interpretation of the BSD license.
At any rate, your language with regard to the FSF (as much as I partly agree with you), continued arguing of points not in dispute (e.g., the matter of non-derivative works), continued refusal to admit that the meaning of "retain" is, at the very least, vague, and continued diatribes against the GPL when you've made the BSDL into virtually the same exact thing, are making you come off like a troll at this point. This is why I dumped debian for FreeBSD: to get away from the constant license zealotry, which was at the point of holding up the release cycle.
Yes, it's crucial to know what their license means in terms of *their* projects! When it comes to others projects it's irrelevant unless they are derived works from the UCB projects!
UCB may not care if the *BSD projects amend the licenses as long as it's essentially the same, as is UCB's right. You'd have to ask them! UCB can conduct itself as they see fit. I don't enough of the salient facts of the UCB case to get in to it in depth.
Besides, it's not relevant who wrote the license. What is relevant is what the license means. What is relevant is how the authors of a work decide how to conduct themselves in regards to people who make derivative works. What is relevant is how authors enforce their rights when others abuse them.
It's not just "retain", it's must retain this list of conditions! That has power beyond the don't remove, it has impact that says don't alter the list since any other list isn't this list of conditions. Since you aren't granted the right to alter the license you can't make the changes regardless. Copyright law prevails in any case and without an explicit permission to alter the license you can't.
which contains a license.
The license requires that you include the _entire_ _unmodified_ copyright declaration. But, then, the law does not exactly encourage altering a copyright declaration, either.
If the original author says,
---------------
Copyright by me, with license Q.
Or, you can also distribute under license P.
---------------
how do you remove the assertion of license Q without altering the copyright declaration?
Note how the declaration of license Q is _part_ _of_ the copyright notice.
Can't legally change it?
Well, then, if you comply with the law and the license, anyone receiving the work and the license becomes aware that the original author offers the (original) source under either license. But the copyright declaration _still_ can't be changed without permission of every contributor.
And, if a contributor fails to specify a license, his/her part is also assumed to be under the dual license.
So, yeah, I could take the dual-licensed part and say that _my_ contributions are under GPL, and the combination of my contributions with the original would also be under GPL. But you can do that with straight BSD anyway. Either way, you have to be very careful to annotate your contributions, so that people downstream from you can undo your contributions to get the original work, sans your contributions and restriction(s).
Without the annotations, the BSD and GPL are incompatible because it becomes difficult to tell what code is under what license, and because the GPL acts against the practical consequences of lack of annotation (ergo, that the whole becomes _assumed_ to be primarily under the license that provides an effective superset of grants). It becomes difficult to inform every person receiving the work of the licenses they are extended.
But the practical results do not undo the legal obligation to transmit the unmodified copyright notice with the file.