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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.
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
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.
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
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
Well, maybe to get around the Microsoft problem they could amend the license:
* 3a. No one shall include any software code
* written by U.C. Berkely or any of its
* contributors in any software program
* intended to be used primarily for evil
* purposes including but not limited
* to the wearing out of RGB monitors
* through the excessive illumination of blue
* phosphor dots.
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 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"
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.