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Berkeley removes Advertising Clause
Matthew N. Dodd was the first to write with the news that UC-Berkeley has changed the *BSD license. Effective immediatly, the 3rd clause, that which requires acknowledgement of UCB in all advertising is null and void. Click below to read the letter from UCB.
July 22, 1999
To All Licensees, Distributors of Any Version of BSD:
As you know, certain of the Berkeley Software Distribution ("BSD") source code files require that further distributions of products containing all or portions of the software, acknowledge within their advertising materials that such products contain software developed by UC Berkeley and its contributors.
Specifically, the provision reads:
* 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
* must display the following acknowledgement:
* This product includes software developed by the University of
* California, Berkeley and its contributors.
Effective immediately, licensees and distributors are no longer required to
include the acknowledgement within advertising materials. Accordingly, the
foregoing paragraph of those BSD Unix files containing it is hereby deleted
in its entirety.
William Hoskins
Director, Office of Technology Licensing
University of California, Berkeley "
The thing is, freedom when taken to extremes isn't a Good Thing. For example, a person has the right to hunt for his or her own food. That is freedom. However, that same person cannot hunt and kill another human being, even for food. Why is this? Because killing another human being impinges on the freedom of that other person.
The point: the GPL basically states that you have certain rights. The same rights, more or less, as those granted with the BSD license. The GPL goes further, however, by stating that you must give everyone else the same rights you have, and consequently that they must give everyone else those same rights. BSD doesn't do this, and it's BSD's only critical flaw. When I get a piece of BSD software, I have certain rights. However, because of BSD's license, I can theoretically deny those same rights to other people. This isn't a Good Thing at all.
We all already know that NT4.0 has BSD code in it... are they going to start putting more in and claiming it for their own? I don't like it.
Do you Gentoo!?
Why is such an obviously idiotic comment moderated up?
RMS requested that people acknowledge their operating systems as being essentially the GNU OS with a Linux kernel, hence "GNU/Linux" systems. He did not legally mandate that this be done.
The BSD license, on the other hand, legally mandated that Berkeley be credited in all advertising materials. Even your 3-line classified ad had to waste one of the lines crediting Berkeley.
The difference should be obvious.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
...Well, maybe not perfect, but it's pretty libertarian of 'em. ;)
Geeky modern art T-shirts
UCB has only removed demands for credit to the University of California. Other people who have added code to BSD have inserted demands for credit to them, and for such code, the advertising clause is still in effect.
For code that only demands credit to Berkeley, the conflict is gone and it can now be freely linked to GPL code.
1. As much as he whines, RMS isn't legally obligating anyone to use the GNU/ prefix ... it's certainly not written into the GPL
2. Any Linux distribution I've seen is the GNU system with some BSD tools and a Linux kernel. It's certainly not inappropriate to call it GNU/Linux.
3. The BSD tools are a minimal part of the system, though -- if you put the GNU tools on a FreeBSD system, you don't get GNU/FreeBSD -- it works the other way around, too.
4. This also means that if someone took FreeBSD and replaced only the kernel with Linux, you could legitimately call it BSD/Linux. (and probably ought to, to avoid confusion!)
Berlin-- http://www.berlin-consortium.org
DNA just wants to be free...
Even if your code is GPL, the slimeballs can sue anyway! Doesn't matter if the code if GPL, BSD or BFD. Close but no cigar...
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Read the subject
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
This remark makes no sense whatsoever. The BSD license already permits extensions to be totally proprietary. Why do BSD advocates care if someone makes an extension or fork off the BSD tree and GPLs it, when they don't object to someone who makes a fork off the tree that is totally proprietary?
It's really strange. BSDers politely request people to give their changes back, but if they choose not to (e.g. put the code into Solaris or some such) they don't object. But they scream if someone takes the same code and puts it into a GPL program. This is stupid. Even if BSD people can't use the code directly, they can study it for ideas, which is something that they can't do with proprietary extensions. (And yes, BSD snobs, BSD kernel developers have learned a considerable amount from work that first appeared in the Linux space, and of course considerable knowledge has flowed the other way as well).
If someone takes a BSD distribution and slaps the GPL on it, the original BSD distribution is still available. Note that RMS does not advocate doing things like this; while he prefers copyleft, he thinks that cooperation with the maintainers of non-copylefted free software and avoiding forks is more important. But if someone else does it, it really doesn't matter.
The BSD license permits someone to add new code to existing BSD code, and then to add a new license, as long as the original notice is kept. If you think that it is wrong for someone to use this permission, it follows that you think BSD licensing is wrong.
BSDers don't care at all if the license on the derivative work says "All rights reserved", no copying or distribution, pay thousands of dollars, go to jail if you break it. But they scream, scream, scream if the new license says "GPL". Why is this?
Please note: I don't want to change your sacred license. I got my degree at Berkeley, and I produced vast amounts of free software with a license just like what BSD is now (we never had the advertising clause). But if someone made a derivative work of my code and put the GPL on it, I wouldn't object in any way.
BTW, most of this is applicable to all licenses, including the GPL.
Besides being morally repugnant (the author released the code under that license for a reason), it is illegal for anyone other than the author(s) of a piece of code or binary to alter a license in ANY WAY (including Microsoft, SUN, BSDI, etc.).
The main problem with the arguments of the proponents of GPLing BSDL source is that they assume a license completely ignores any previous rights given by copyright law. They assume that if it isn't explicitly stated in the license, a right is forfeit. It isn't. In fact, the opposite is true. Part (d) of section 201, Title 17 of the United States Code deals with the transfer of copyright rights and reads:
"(d) TRANSFER OF OWNERSHIP.--
(1) The ownership of a copyright may be transferred in whole or in part by any means of conveyance or by operation of law, and may be bequeathed by will or pass as personal property by the applicable laws of intestate succession.
(2) Any of the exclusive rights comprised in a copyright, including any subdivi-sion of any of the rights specified by section 106, may be transferred as provided by clause (1) and owned separately. The owner of any particular exclusive right is entitled, to the extent of that right, to all of the protection and remedies accorded to the copyright owner by this title."
There is nothing special about a license. It is simply a temporary grant of the rights entitled by a copyright holder. A licensee only gets the rights explicitly specified in the license.
In fact, a license CANNOT give you the right to change the license. That is a right of ownership of the copyright, and as stated in Section 101, Title 17, USC, the definition of a "transfer of copyright ownership" excludes nonexclusive licenses (which software licenses are, by definition). So if a license gave you the right, it wouldn't be legally binding, and any subsequent sub-licensing would likewise be legally invalid. This is an area that I would be interested in seeing how the courts have defined.
Furthermore, a person cannot GPL changes or additions made to BSDL code. Those are considered derivative works, and, as granted in subsection (c) of section 106, Title 17, USC, they are the exclusive right of the copyright owner. So, those would have to be BSDL, as well. The only way someone could GPL any BSDL code is if they created an entirely new work (not derivative) and their use of BSDL'd code passed the fair use test.
As an aside, derivative works aren't well defined in the law (what happens to derivative works not created by the author, for example), so it would be interesting to see how the courts have defined this area. Also, code changes are a special case and could probably be further defined. Based on my interpretation of the law, changes made to either BSDL or GPL code would be copyrighted by the original author of the code, which seems excessive. (Anybody out there know how the courts have ruled?)
Whatever your feelings on GPL and BSDL, I think everyone can agree they represent very different philosophies for "free" software. To try to change the license of an author's code, even if it wasn't illegal, is wrong. The author made a choice, one that should be respected. By trying to change the license, a person is trying to take away an author's right to make that choice. That is why BSD people get so upset when someone tries to GPL BSDL code, for those of you that had to ask.
Responses are welcome. I am certainly not an authority on the subject, I just did a little research. I am especially interested in the case law, which I know absolutely nothing about. If any one is aware of how copyright law has been interpreted by the courts and how that might apply to this situation, I would love to hear from you.
If you are interested in checking my research or just learning more about copyright law (it is very interesting stuff), the official site is at the Library of Congress.
Nathan "n8" Florea
n8_f@uswest.net
Links:
U.S. Copyright Law PDF
Section 201, Title 17, USC PDF
Section 101, Title 17, USC PDF
Section 106, Title 17, USC PDF
U. S. Copyright Office
Library of Congress
The Fair Use Test
> given the facts that the sourcetrees of the BSD's are more closed than the average Linux sourcetree.
What on earth are you talking about? I get the source on the CD, I can change it, I can submit it, I can get it accepted, or I can fork the tree and distribute the changed version as my own. How is this closed at all? Linus doesn't take every last kernel hack everyone submits to him, yunno. Sometimes his right-hand-man Alan Cox has to maintain a forked version for months.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
> Without careful butt-covering, someone could take your public domain code, hang theircopyright notice on it, and claim it as their own.
The phrase "your public domain code" is an oxymoron. No one owns PD code, and no one *can* claim ownership of PD code. You can stick a wrapper around PD code and call it your own, but you can't prevent anyone else from using the original PD code.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
G N U L I X
:)
(I'm gonna kill my 2 score aren't I?)
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Why in the world would you want to GPL someone's BSD code? You may not agree with the original author's choice for using BSD, but it's still his choice. To even suggest adding to or changing the license is an incredible feat of disrespect to the authors.
What if someone found a hidden but valid loophole in the GPL that allowed them release all of Debian under BSD?. You would be angry, livid, beside yourself, foaming at the mouth, losing bladder control, and in general having violent conniption fits. To paraphrase Tolkien, "Those having respect for living authors will use their license and no other."
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
The key phrase in the previous post was "morally bereft". The BSD allows so much freedom that it even allows people the freedom to be stupid, ignorant and morally wrong. Just as in the real world, just because something is legal doesn't make it moral.
After years of proclaiming the inherent righteousness of the GPL since it won't allow licensing changes, the stallmanistas now want to do unto others what they don't want others to do unto them. Utter hypocracy.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
I'm not against people using the BSD, or even incorporating it into GPL or proprietary code. What I am railing against is the utter hypocracy that many AC's have posted here.
Imagine that I have a swimming pool. I allow everyone in the nieghborhood to use my pool at any time. I even keep my back gate unlocked so they can. You, on the other hand, continually berate and chastise me for my free-thinking ways. You warn me that some bum will spread disease in my pool, that kids will urinate in it, and the city council will fine me for not having a lock on the gate. Everytime I see you, you are wagging your finger at me calling me stupid and ignorant. What else am I supposed to think but "hypocrite" when you come use my pool?
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
An interesting (and welcome) move. However, it's worth pointing out that they're not changing existing licenses retroactively. If it were possible to do that, there would be nothing to stop someone relicensing a program with an OSD-compliant license under terms that meant it was no longer freely redistributable. No, what UCB are doing is effectively offering new licensing terms. Individuals are free to either accept those terms, or stick with their original licenses. Of course, in this case, there's no benefit to sticking with the old terms, but the difference is worth pointing out.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
True, but in that case, the FSF owned the copyright to the entire program, and hence were free to offer new license terms as they saw fit.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
This is really great news. The advertising clause made the BSD license incompatible with the GPL. This should help both the *BSD and the GPL camps.
I wonder who convinced them to change it? I know RMS was pushing for it:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html
Many, including Richard Stallman, have criticized the BSD license due to its demand for credit in advertising. Since this is the only restriction on further redistribution, the BSDs are the only freely re-distributable operating systems in common use. However, due to the advertising clause, FreeBSD cannot simply tack the GPL onto the existing license. The GPL prohibits this. Much new development removes the advertising clause of the copyright statement.
So, now that the advertising clause is gone, does this mean that FreeBSD can simply tack the GPL onto the existing license?
I'm sure millions of people are applauding this removal of "obnoxious" advertisement, however...
...it is still considered good manners to attribute your sources.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Apparently you haven't had any contact with RMS. I've been lurking on the license-discuss list at OSI for the last few months, and RMS routinely replies to mails mentioning "Linux" without saying "please call it the GNU/Linux system" or anything of that nature. He uses "GNU/Linux" is his own emails, as do some other people, but he doesn't force others to do so. He certainly doesn't legally require them to do so.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The head of the letter says 22/7/99 and the date of the file in the dirctory is 16/8/99. Pretty outdated news for slashdot, huh? Anyway. This is a good thing to happen - at any time.
B.
See my earlier comment. All UCB are doing (in fact, all they can do) is offering to relicense the code on which they own the copyright under the new terms. Although many programs use the BSD license, UCB don't own copyright on most of them, and hence have no say in future licensing terms.
Individuals authors will have to rerelease the source under the new license terms (or offer to relicense existing source under the new terms). No doubt some will do so, and some will not -- either because they want the advertising clause present (and they have every right to do so), or because they don't know or don't care about it.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
What is the difference between this and public domain now? The GPL prevents commercial development from absorbing source into proprietary works (for good or bad). Without the credit clause what is the point of the BSD license? Does it encourage or discourage anything in any way that makes it different from public domain?
Insert pithy comment here.
I'd hope that licensees of BSD Unix would still give credit to UC Berkeley, even if it is a voluntary decision on the licensee's part.
I'm a rabid GPL advocate and all, but the reprocussions of this I'm seeing down the road just make me ill...
Berlin-- http://www.berlin-consortium.org
DNA just wants to be free...
C:\WINDOWS>strings ftp.exe|grep Regents
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
C:\WINDOWS>
Proof enough?
(Anyone with dual-boot machine can check it themselves by mounting the Windows partition and doing the strings thing from Linux.)
-- Alastair
I have and will continue to bash the philosophy behind the GPL, but I don't recall every bashing the GPL itself (though I may have nitpicked it). However, every license serves its purpose, including proprietary licenses. If the GPL serves your purpose, use it. If the BSD is better for you then by all means use it. There's no sense arguing over which is "freer" since neither has anything at all to do with political liberty.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
that many of the people that insist on calling it GNU/Linux, think that the advertising clause of the BSD license is "obnoxious". Would not that make RMS obnoxious? He never shuts up about it. Funny when credit is "requested" from GPL supporters it is due, but when the BSD license wants it, it is "obnoxious"
If it prevented companies from selling your code and claiming that theirs is better, I don't see why it would be staggeringly stupid.
I don't want to prevent this. I want my code to
be free. Hence, I would use the BSD/X license.
--
Kevin Doherty
kdoherty+slashdot@jurai.net
Kevin Doherty
kdoherty+slashdot@jurai.net
Ofcourse, if somebody took YOUR 10,000 lines of code and made a billion dollars from it.. it wouldn't make you mad. No, what would be maddening would be the fact that they changed it.. ever so slightly.. made it faster.. better. Incompatable. And you can't see it, either. It is property of MegaLopoly Capitol Holding, INC CO LTD Limited AG. So go fsck yourself and write a better one. The BSD License depends upon a "gentlemans handshake" agreement that we give, and we take. The GPL is a pissed off farmer with a shotgun. Personally, cheap reproduceable code should be BSD'd. Something like the kernel should be GPL'ed (IMHO). ;-) the Pan
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
"Non-free software will be used as a weapon to control and curtail your activities, and I don't feel like writing code that could legally be used against me in that manner."
Non-free software "controls" no one. And any curtailing it does is similar to the curtailing inherent in the GPL, Artistic, MPL, QPL, etc. Both have terms limiting how you can redistribute the software. Even the GPL has clauses limiting what an end "user" can or can't use (a GPL'd library has severe restrictions on its intended end user).
Explain how not writing code under the GPL can be legally used against you? As long as you follow all copyright laws (whether copyleft or not) and avoid software patents, how can any swarming unscrupulous corporate type do anything at all to you?
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Ok, this is just something to note.
First, I'm not a Win9x, NT, *BSD, Linux, Mac, etc. user...
Actually, I run BeOS, Linux AND FreeBSD, so I'm not really biased.
Something a lot of people here seem to be saying is about appending the GPL onto *BSD. You people must get it through your heads, GPL is not the saving grace. Most, if not all, *BSD users that I know (self somewhat included) detest the GPL, because of it's politics. It's a software license for chrissakes, not a religion.
This is not intended as flamebait nor to attack, simply to point out that don't see it how a lot of BSD people do - they use FreeBSD because they don't want GPL, not because GPL doesn't want them.
Oh, and umm, hi mom!
You get 1 point automatically for not being an Anonymous Coward. This is because Anonymous Cowards (such as myself) have been known to be obnoxious or clueless.
The second point is a default moderation. It comes as a result of having several posts moderated up over time. The poster becomes a favored poster because they have a history of saying things worthwhile.
It's still possible for people with default 2's to post flamebait or trolls. We all have days where we get a little surly. If it continues, their default score will eventually be averaged down. It's also possible to log in and flame yourself into a default 0.
Check out rde's user page. Most of the time, rde has something worthwhile to say. Personally, I think (s)he was right on with the original post -- the BSD vs. GPL license war is one of the most time-wasting activities I've ever seen. I'm also tired of seeing BSD articles turn into 400-comment ASCII battles around here.
But I'm obviously a hypocrite since I'm posting on slashdot instead of coding right now.
No, RMS is not our god. Linus is our god, haven't you been paying attention! RMS is just Saint Ignucious, who paved the way for our god. :-)
----
----
Open mind, insert foot.
So, you're not interested in improving someone else's code, not interested in helping the community, not interested in any sort of the customary altruistic activities inherent in a gift-culture. Instead, you just want to take.
The author of a BSD source code can rerelease it at any time under any license he wishes. But because he doesn't, you would take his code and slap a different license on it against his wishes (not that you legally could). Ungrateful greedy lout!
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Apparently, my post got put up out of context. This caused some confusion. I'll rephrase my thoughts.
Now that BSD development is fully open for GPL/GNU participation, I see that no one is advocating this. No one. Instead I see lots of posts advocating the opposite, the taking of BSD code for GPL/GNU purposes. The whole idea of Free Software is to keep it in the community, and now I see people wanting to expatriate code. I see posts on the order of "now we can take it and make it ours." All of you would be pissing nails if someone suggested BSDing GPL/GNU code. But in advocating GPLing BSD code, you are among the worst of hypocrits.
No one in the BSD camp worries if you take some code here or there for your own use. In fact, it's encouraged. Take several application if you want and come back for more. But the BSD offer of free love was interpreted by you as rape. And just like a despicable rapist, your reply when caught is "but she really wanted it, look at how she's dressed."
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
A software license defines restrictions you wish to place on the use of your software/code. It is a legally binding agreement between the copyright holder and the user. These restrictions can not be overridden by sublicensing the code unless permission is explicitly given.
A copyright notice defines ownership of the code. You do not need to place a copyright notice in your work to hold the copyright. The second you write it (in the US), it is protected under copyright law unless you explicitly release it to the public domain.
Code which is in the "public domain" has no copyright. You used to see people who would release code to the public domain with restrictions, however in the US "public domain" means public domain, so the restrictions won't hold up.
Unless explicitly forbidden by a license, you can sublicense code under whatever terms you wish. The terms of the new license can not conflict with the old license (sublicense, not relicense).
This allowed people such as Microsoft to take BSD code and place it under MS EULA. The EULA does not place any restrictions to make it incompatible with the original BSD license.
That said, it is completely legal to sublicense BSD source code as GPL as long as the GPL does not conflict with the BSD license, which, by the looks of it, it doesn't.
Here are some URLs for people who are interested:
[disclaimer: this is all information I gathered from law usenet groups and various legal web sites so it may not be completely accurate. if there are any copyright lawyers who want to correct me, please do.]
--
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.