Remember that this is the law, and "but that's not what I meant!" counts for nothing; only what's written down matters. In this case, if I see "This code is dual-licensed A or B, your choice" then that's exactly what it means: on my derivative work I get to decide if I want to use A or B (or retain a dual license). If you mean "all derivative works must also be dual licensed" then say that.
On your derivative work you get to decide what license to use because it is your work, not because of what the license to the original says. You can pick A, B or C; you're not restricted to A or B. You can incorporate the dual-licensed code into a proprietary program, for example.
You get to decide what terms you follow when you distribute the original, modify the original, and distribute derived works of the original. However, you don't get to decide what terms your recipients of the original work follow with regard to that original work, or any pieces thereof that you include with your work.
Derivative works do not need to be dual licensed. The parts of a derivative work that come from a dual licensed work, however, remain dual licensed. This is what is meant by "you cannot strip away the license"--what it means is that you can't dictate what rights others have to use code that is not yours, only the rights to your own code. By the same token, the author of the original work can't dictate the rights that others have to your own work.
If I choose to distribute under the terms of the GPL, then nothing in those terms requires me to maintain anything but the GPL. The author's license would have to say something like, "You may redistribute using the terms of either license, but you must include both license notices." for it to work the way that Theo thinks it does.
The first obvious problem is that there aren't two license notices. There is one, and it says that you may distribute either under the terms of the BSD or the GPL.
The other, more serious problem there is that if you strip out the text that spells out the BSD license terms to the code, you've misrepresented the license that your recipients have to the pieces of your work that originate in the dual-licensed work. Those pieces are available to everybody under either the terms of the BSD or the GPL license. But you're now telling them, falsely, that they are only available under the terms of the GPL.
I don't know where you'd stand legally if you did that, but it's clearly wrong, and you shouldn't do it.
Inclusion of the BSD license notice doesn't mean that your work falls under the GPL. The way you handle this is like the Linux developers in this story have, following the advice of Mr. Moglen: in your overall license notice, you mention that your work is copyright you and licensed under the GPL, but that it is derived from a work that's copyright the author, who licenses it under the terms that you then proceed to reproduce.
This conveys the situation precisely: there is some content in this file that you don't own, and the rights that the author grants to others are the following, as the author requires you to communicate to anybody you give their source code to.
Why does it work this way? Because the copyright holders who release their owned works under the BSD license want everybody who receives source code to be informed of the terms under which they can use that source code. That's what the obligatory reproduction of license notice accomplishes.
Sure I can, because the BSD license tells me I can modify and distribute it as long as I don't remove the copyright lines.
The BSD license doesn't give you permission to break the law. Yes, the license does give you permission to modify and distribute it as long as you don't remove the copyright lines. However, some ways of doing so are illegal. For example, slapping your own copyright and license notices on a work you did not modify.
If they can't change the terms on Reyk's work (in the sense of it being impossible for them to do so) then Theo is wrong to accuse them of it. Everyone who receives Reyk's work or a derivative work of Reyk's work automatically receives a BSD license from Reyk. Nobody can change this, so accusing someone of changing this is nonsensical.
The BSD license (which some of the files in question are exclusively licensed under, before anybody brings out the "dual license" answer) has, as part of its terms, a requirement to reproduce the license notice in a source distribution of a derived work. Removing the license notice, thus, violates the license.
Even if there wasn't that clause, if you deliberately change the license notice of the work, you are certainly misrepresenting the license that you and your recipients have to that code. That is, at the very least, sketchy.
It doesn't state that the code may only be distributed under both licenses simultaneously. The user may choose one to distribute it under - and that means the user can choose the GPL. Alone.
Yes, but the people who receive code from you also get to choose which set of terms to abide by for whatever pieces of what you gave them were taken from the original. That's because the copyright holder of the original gave a license to everybody to use, modify and distribute the original work, as long as they abide by the terms of either license.
To say that more slowly: when you modify the original work to create a derived work, and release your derived work under the GPL only, that derived work you created has two parts:
the parts that come from the original, dual-licensed work;
the parts that you added or modified.
You can choose the license for the second of these, because it is your work, and only you have the right to it until you license it to anybody else. The first, however, is still under a dual license. If I take the file that you gave me and rip out the parts that you added or modifed, I can use, modify and distribute the remaining under either the terms of the BSD or the GPL. The fact that you gave me your derived work under the terms of the GPL doesn't restrict me from using the parts that aren't yours under the terms of the BSD, because the original author gave everybody the right to do so. You only have the right to dictate license terms to the work that is yours.
The reason that ripping our the BSD license notice in a derived work of a dual-licensed file is wrong is because you are misrepresenting the license to parts of the work that are dual-licensed. You are falsely asserting that no part of that file may be used unless the terms of the GPL are met; but in fact, there are parts that may be used without meeting the terms of the GPL.
The GPLers didn't strip the licence. The code was available under either licence. What gets me is that Theo De Raadt is arguing that both licences apply so they couldnt remove one.
You don't understand the term "license." The author of the file extended a license to everybody, that allows them to use his work under the terms of either the GPL or the BSD. The only person who can modify the license, i.e., extend a different set of permissions to use the work in question, is the copyright holder.
Everybody has the right to use the author's work under either the GPL or BSD license. This permission extends from the author to anybody who comes across the work in any form. When you give your modified work to somebody else, you don't grant them permission to use the original author's work (i.e., you don't sublicense the author's work); your recipient can only use the derived work because the original's work license allows them to use the derived work you produced.
When you remove the BSD copyright notice from the dual-licensed work, you are misrepresenting the license that you and your recipients have to the work.
Then I suppose the next thing is to define "substantial". Just how many lines have to be added/changed before the changes are "substantial"?
That's a good question. I don't really have an opinion. What I will say is that, if two parties have a dispute about this that they can't resole through agreement, then the decision is made by the courts.
In other words, it doesn't matter if it's a derived work or not because you've already given me permission to modify and redistribute it. That includes adding a new license to it, as long as I keep the original copyright text.
You dont understand the term "license." A license is the permission that the copyright holder extends to somebody, that gives them the right to make some specified use of the copyrighted term in question.
You can't do what you just said because you've not created a new work. You've taken the same work, to which you do not hold the copyright, and written a notice that pretends to dictate who may use it and in which way, something that you do not have the right to do. Why? Because you don't have the right to permit others to use that work, only the copyright holder. By slapping your copyright notice, in effect, you're saying that some of the file is your own original and substantial work. In this case, however, this claim would be false; nothing in that file is your work. You'd be appropriating somebody else's work.
The software is "free" because the copyright holder has given everybody the permission to use, modify and distribute it, but that permission comes from the copyright holder, not from you, because you are not the copyright holder. You only get to dictate license terms on work that you hold the copyright to; this includes substantial and/or original modifications of a work that you have obtained under a BSD license.
And no, the license doesn't say that, because this is copyright law, plain and simple. Nothing that the license says or omits allows you to break the law.
Here's what Theo has to say about the above instance:
It may seem that the licenses let one _distribute_ it under either license, but this interpretation of the license is false -- it is still illegal to break up, cut up, or modify someone else's legal document, and, it cannot be replaced by another license because it may not be removed. Hence, a dual licensed file always remains dual licensed, every time it is distributed.
Are you claiming that you can break up, cut up, or modify somebody else's legal document? Are you claiming that there is anything else giving you permission to modify a BSD-licensed piece of code within a broader file, other than the BSD license granted to you by its author of that piece of code?
Seriously, once you strip out all the confused terminology that people are misusing all around the conversation ("license," "licensing," "relicensing," "file"), all that Theo's saying boils down to the fact that you can't pretend that you are the owner of code you do not own, and you can only use somebody else's code in the ways that they give you permission (i.e. "license") to use it. None of the other stuff you are saying has anything to do with this point.
Theo is arguing that Linux is not allowed to use GPL for their derived product, thus arguing against the spirit of BSD licenses ( and making no sense).
No, Theo is arguing that there is no derived work at all in this case. Copyright law in the US (which Theo cites) and abroad requires that changes to the original be substantial for the result to qualify as a derived work. Theo is claiming that the changes that were made to the files are not substantial, and therefore, that the files are Reyk's BSD licensed work, which only Reyk owns, and thus, only Reyk can change the terms on.
Again, this is something that can be gleaned by reading what Theo actually wrote, and understanding it.
Try to think carefully about what the term "license" really means: a license is the pemission that the owner of a copyrighted work gives to some specific people to make use of the work in certain ways. A license notice is a legal document that gives somebody license to use a particular work, whose copyright must be owned by the issuer of the license.
Now the key thing is the following: as long as you use anybody else's code in any way, except in some limited circumstances, you must have a license to use the work in question. In the case where we're looking at, releasing a modifed version of a BSD licensed work, and giving it to a third party so that they may use it, the following licenses are required:
You, as the author of the modification, need to have a license to modify the file and, and to give the result to your recipients.
Your recipients, as recipients of the modified work, need to have a license to use both the original work and your modified ("derived") work.
This is the reason why you can't "strip out a license." A license is a permission, and as long as the original author of a piece of code owns that code, anybody who reuses that code needs permission (i.e., "license") from them.
So if I understand that then it seems to me that until a modified or unmodified version is redistributed, along with a separate license and the BSD license (in accord with the redistribution clause), the code in any form is tied to the BSD (at least partially).
No, even after you make a modification, the author's original code is still licensed under the terms of the BSD license. What you own are your modifications, and you may license them in any way you wish. The only reason you are allowed to modify the code and distribute the modified version, and your users are allowed to use it, is because of the original author's BSD license (which, in plainer speech, means "the set of things that the owner gave you and your users permission to do with the code").
So to use it in a closed project, without inheriting the original license as a portion of your sublicense you'd have to dual-license the code, then absorb that code using the only secondary license. Which would allow you to strip the primary BSD license and subsequent redistribution clause.
This idea that the code is "dual-licensed" is also a source of condition, because it doesn't really mean what it looks like it does. The original author gave permission to use their work in some ways; the modifier gave permission to use their work in another set of ways. There isn't an identifiable piece of code in there that's "dual-licensed"; it means that in order to use the file as a whole, you needed permission from two different people, who gave permission in different terms.
So no, the closed project can't "strip" the license anymore than anybody else can. The license notice gives the closed project permission (i.e., "license") to use and modify the code, and to distribute binary versions thereof to end-users (who have, in turn, been given permission to use the original work). The license gives also permission to distribute modified source, as long as the copyright and license notice are kept.
Really, it's not that hard, once you strip away all the confusing vocabulary that people are attaching to it.
What's the basis for OP's claim that some in the BSD license side are claiming that the BSD is "viral"? "Viral," in the context of the GPL, means that derivative works of an original, GPL-licensed work, must also be licensed under the GPL. The BSD license clearly doesn't restrict your choice of license for any derivative works you may make.
You know, in arguments among people who can read and understand what they read, there is no need to refute such patently absurd points.
Here is one reason why BSD guys would rather see BSD code taken completely proprietary than see it go GPL: when the code goes completely proprietary there is still a chance that patches will be contributed back to the original BSD project.
Nothing stops a GPL project from contributing patches back to the original BSD project, under the terms of the BSD license. The problem arises when somebody self-righteously insists in submitting GPL-licensed modifications to a BSD project.
The BSD license allows you to make a derived work of a BSD licensed work, allows you to license your derived work under whatever terms you like, and allows the recipients of your derived work to use it insofar it contains parts from the original work. That's not being disputed.
What Theo is pointing out is that, according to the law, not all modifications count as producing a derived work, only "substantial" ones. If you make insubstantial modifications to a BSD-licensed work and release it, legally, you haven't released a new work, so you don't have a right to license anything at all. If you put your own copyright notice and license terms on this file, you're putting them on the same work as the original, which you do not have the right to.
In one of the previous discussions a helpful poster quoted Theo saying that he thought the relicensing was a moral issue - ie that Linux devs had taken code and made it 'less free''.
Which proves that either you can't read, or you won't read.
Theo explicitly says that the theory presupposed by the term "relicensing" that's being thrown around is false. He claims that the current state, where the Linux developers in question have put additional copyright and license notices to a BSD-licensed file they have not substantially modified, is illegal. He admits that there are situations where such moves are legal; but in those situations, he thinks it is still immoral.
You mean like Theo that can't take that he has to respect a different license. Because he obviously had a problem respecting the GPL in the BCM case. It is quite hypocritical to disrespect another license just to turn around and demand respect for his license.
Did you actually read what he said in that case? I did. He repeatedly said, throughout the threads in question, that yes, GPLed code had been checked into the OpenBSD tree without the GPL license notice, and that it was an error. His dispute was not about the facts of the matter, but rather, the conduct of the people who pursued it; his claim that the morally correct way to handle it would have been to first shoot off a private email to the guy who made the error.
Didn't you ever learn to read, and to charitably evaluate the arguments of people you disagree with?
The other half, the way I read it, is as follows: if the changes you're making to the BSD file are very small, there is a question whether the result truly qualifies as a "derived work." In that case, you really ought to not put any additional copyright and license notices on the files.
The GPL states that the receiver of the code should have the freedom to modify it, however they wish.
Yes, it does say that. Does that mean that you can change the copyright and license notices in a GPL file at will?
Nothing that the GPL or any license says can be interpreted to mean that you are allowed to break the law. This is really what this dispute is about--the OpenBSD side claim that by altering the license notice of a BSD-released file, without making modifications substantial enough to classifiy as a derived work, the Linux developers in question are breaking the law.
You (and nearly everybody else, for that matter) are failing to distinguish between "license" and "license notice." The GPLers unquestionably stripped the original license notices from the files. IANAL, but I can tell that this is pretty stupid. The license is the only thing that gives them a right to use that file, so the original license notice is a crucial piece of documentation of the fact that they are allowed to use the file in the first place.
Further, to make things even more ridiculous, many on the BSD side claimed at the time of the bcw violation that this was somehow evidence that the BSD license was "superior" because it wasn't viral, and BSD code could be incorporated into Linux without violating any licenses. They're now arguing the exact opposite, some even claiming the BSD license is viral.
To paraphrase you: "I didn't read what Theo wrote."
Actually, that was uncharitable. Let me offer you a better paraphrase: "I didn't bother to try to understand what Theo wrote, because I was convinced beforehand that nothing he could say could change my mind, because my opinions are not based on anything as flimsy as evidence."
That's an oversimplification. In reality, one's mannerisms, mode of dress, and dialect also have an effect. If you choose to act out your racial stereotype, you're more likely to be racially stereotyped. People categorize by nature--if you whole-heartedly adopt a certain culture or subculture, you're going to be identified with it by others.
Yeah right. Tell that to middle-class black people who, no matter how they dress, act or talk, regularly have to deal with people who assume they aren't well-educated and/or economically solvent. Like going into a store and having the shopkeepers try to shoo them out because they assume they can't afford anything, or follow them because they think they're going to steal something. Or they can't get as good terms on a mortgage as white people with equivalent education or income. Or they're out working in their lawns, and somebody approaches them thinking they're professional landscapers. Or they get people telling them all the time that they're "so articulate," and "not like the other black people," or "a credit to their race," or, in general, just bringing up their race out of the blue when it ought not to be relevant to the situation. News bulletin: this shit is totally commonplace in the USA, and it's got nothing to do with how they dress, walk, act or talk, and everything to do with how their skin looks, and the inferences other people draw when they see that skin color.
Anyway, I made a general statement about the experience of being a minority in the USA, which applies to very many different situations. You responded to it by applying a racial stereotype.
You make a good point - though it depends on what the group in question actually promotes.
I won't let this one pass by. You're privileging intent over consequences. It is of very little comfort to the victims of racism that most of the very real racism that they are subjected to comes from people with perfectly good intentions, who sincerely wish everybody would just get along. (As it is in fact.) People should strive to understand the consequences of what they do, and take responsibility for the results, regardless of their intent.
Intent does figure in the moral calculus, but it's not a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Slashdot Mirror
On your derivative work you get to decide what license to use because it is your work, not because of what the license to the original says. You can pick A, B or C; you're not restricted to A or B. You can incorporate the dual-licensed code into a proprietary program, for example.
You get to decide what terms you follow when you distribute the original, modify the original, and distribute derived works of the original. However, you don't get to decide what terms your recipients of the original work follow with regard to that original work, or any pieces thereof that you include with your work.
Derivative works do not need to be dual licensed. The parts of a derivative work that come from a dual licensed work, however, remain dual licensed. This is what is meant by "you cannot strip away the license"--what it means is that you can't dictate what rights others have to use code that is not yours, only the rights to your own code. By the same token, the author of the original work can't dictate the rights that others have to your own work.
The first obvious problem is that there aren't two license notices. There is one, and it says that you may distribute either under the terms of the BSD or the GPL.
The other, more serious problem there is that if you strip out the text that spells out the BSD license terms to the code, you've misrepresented the license that your recipients have to the pieces of your work that originate in the dual-licensed work. Those pieces are available to everybody under either the terms of the BSD or the GPL license. But you're now telling them, falsely, that they are only available under the terms of the GPL.
I don't know where you'd stand legally if you did that, but it's clearly wrong, and you shouldn't do it.
Inclusion of the BSD license notice doesn't mean that your work falls under the GPL. The way you handle this is like the Linux developers in this story have, following the advice of Mr. Moglen: in your overall license notice, you mention that your work is copyright you and licensed under the GPL, but that it is derived from a work that's copyright the author, who licenses it under the terms that you then proceed to reproduce.
This conveys the situation precisely: there is some content in this file that you don't own, and the rights that the author grants to others are the following, as the author requires you to communicate to anybody you give their source code to.
Why does it work this way? Because the copyright holders who release their owned works under the BSD license want everybody who receives source code to be informed of the terms under which they can use that source code. That's what the obligatory reproduction of license notice accomplishes.
The BSD license doesn't give you permission to break the law. Yes, the license does give you permission to modify and distribute it as long as you don't remove the copyright lines. However, some ways of doing so are illegal. For example, slapping your own copyright and license notices on a work you did not modify.
The BSD license (which some of the files in question are exclusively licensed under, before anybody brings out the "dual license" answer) has, as part of its terms, a requirement to reproduce the license notice in a source distribution of a derived work. Removing the license notice, thus, violates the license.
Even if there wasn't that clause, if you deliberately change the license notice of the work, you are certainly misrepresenting the license that you and your recipients have to that code. That is, at the very least, sketchy.
Yes, but the people who receive code from you also get to choose which set of terms to abide by for whatever pieces of what you gave them were taken from the original. That's because the copyright holder of the original gave a license to everybody to use, modify and distribute the original work, as long as they abide by the terms of either license.
To say that more slowly: when you modify the original work to create a derived work, and release your derived work under the GPL only, that derived work you created has two parts:
You can choose the license for the second of these, because it is your work, and only you have the right to it until you license it to anybody else. The first, however, is still under a dual license. If I take the file that you gave me and rip out the parts that you added or modifed, I can use, modify and distribute the remaining under either the terms of the BSD or the GPL. The fact that you gave me your derived work under the terms of the GPL doesn't restrict me from using the parts that aren't yours under the terms of the BSD, because the original author gave everybody the right to do so. You only have the right to dictate license terms to the work that is yours.
The reason that ripping our the BSD license notice in a derived work of a dual-licensed file is wrong is because you are misrepresenting the license to parts of the work that are dual-licensed. You are falsely asserting that no part of that file may be used unless the terms of the GPL are met; but in fact, there are parts that may be used without meeting the terms of the GPL.
You don't understand the term "license." The author of the file extended a license to everybody, that allows them to use his work under the terms of either the GPL or the BSD. The only person who can modify the license, i.e., extend a different set of permissions to use the work in question, is the copyright holder.
Everybody has the right to use the author's work under either the GPL or BSD license. This permission extends from the author to anybody who comes across the work in any form. When you give your modified work to somebody else, you don't grant them permission to use the original author's work (i.e., you don't sublicense the author's work); your recipient can only use the derived work because the original's work license allows them to use the derived work you produced.
When you remove the BSD copyright notice from the dual-licensed work, you are misrepresenting the license that you and your recipients have to the work.
That's a good question. I don't really have an opinion. What I will say is that, if two parties have a dispute about this that they can't resole through agreement, then the decision is made by the courts.
You dont understand the term "license." A license is the permission that the copyright holder extends to somebody, that gives them the right to make some specified use of the copyrighted term in question.
You can't do what you just said because you've not created a new work. You've taken the same work, to which you do not hold the copyright, and written a notice that pretends to dictate who may use it and in which way, something that you do not have the right to do. Why? Because you don't have the right to permit others to use that work, only the copyright holder. By slapping your copyright notice, in effect, you're saying that some of the file is your own original and substantial work. In this case, however, this claim would be false; nothing in that file is your work. You'd be appropriating somebody else's work.
The software is "free" because the copyright holder has given everybody the permission to use, modify and distribute it, but that permission comes from the copyright holder, not from you, because you are not the copyright holder. You only get to dictate license terms on work that you hold the copyright to; this includes substantial and/or original modifications of a work that you have obtained under a BSD license.
And no, the license doesn't say that, because this is copyright law, plain and simple. Nothing that the license says or omits allows you to break the law.
Are you claiming that you can break up, cut up, or modify somebody else's legal document? Are you claiming that there is anything else giving you permission to modify a BSD-licensed piece of code within a broader file, other than the BSD license granted to you by its author of that piece of code?
Seriously, once you strip out all the confused terminology that people are misusing all around the conversation ("license," "licensing," "relicensing," "file"), all that Theo's saying boils down to the fact that you can't pretend that you are the owner of code you do not own, and you can only use somebody else's code in the ways that they give you permission (i.e. "license") to use it. None of the other stuff you are saying has anything to do with this point.
Theo didn't write the title of this story. You just seriously offered the title of a Slashdot submission as evidence of what Theo claims or believes.
No, Theo is arguing that there is no derived work at all in this case. Copyright law in the US (which Theo cites) and abroad requires that changes to the original be substantial for the result to qualify as a derived work. Theo is claiming that the changes that were made to the files are not substantial, and therefore, that the files are Reyk's BSD licensed work, which only Reyk owns, and thus, only Reyk can change the terms on.
Again, this is something that can be gleaned by reading what Theo actually wrote, and understanding it.
Try to think carefully about what the term "license" really means: a license is the pemission that the owner of a copyrighted work gives to some specific people to make use of the work in certain ways. A license notice is a legal document that gives somebody license to use a particular work, whose copyright must be owned by the issuer of the license.
Now the key thing is the following: as long as you use anybody else's code in any way, except in some limited circumstances, you must have a license to use the work in question. In the case where we're looking at, releasing a modifed version of a BSD licensed work, and giving it to a third party so that they may use it, the following licenses are required:
This is the reason why you can't "strip out a license." A license is a permission, and as long as the original author of a piece of code owns that code, anybody who reuses that code needs permission (i.e., "license") from them.
No, even after you make a modification, the author's original code is still licensed under the terms of the BSD license. What you own are your modifications, and you may license them in any way you wish. The only reason you are allowed to modify the code and distribute the modified version, and your users are allowed to use it, is because of the original author's BSD license (which, in plainer speech, means "the set of things that the owner gave you and your users permission to do with the code").
This idea that the code is "dual-licensed" is also a source of condition, because it doesn't really mean what it looks like it does. The original author gave permission to use their work in some ways; the modifier gave permission to use their work in another set of ways. There isn't an identifiable piece of code in there that's "dual-licensed"; it means that in order to use the file as a whole, you needed permission from two different people, who gave permission in different terms.
So no, the closed project can't "strip" the license anymore than anybody else can. The license notice gives the closed project permission (i.e., "license") to use and modify the code, and to distribute binary versions thereof to end-users (who have, in turn, been given permission to use the original work). The license gives also permission to distribute modified source, as long as the copyright and license notice are kept.
Really, it's not that hard, once you strip away all the confusing vocabulary that people are attaching to it.
What's the basis for OP's claim that some in the BSD license side are claiming that the BSD is "viral"? "Viral," in the context of the GPL, means that derivative works of an original, GPL-licensed work, must also be licensed under the GPL. The BSD license clearly doesn't restrict your choice of license for any derivative works you may make.
You know, in arguments among people who can read and understand what they read, there is no need to refute such patently absurd points.
Nothing stops a GPL project from contributing patches back to the original BSD project, under the terms of the BSD license. The problem arises when somebody self-righteously insists in submitting GPL-licensed modifications to a BSD project.
The BSD license allows you to make a derived work of a BSD licensed work, allows you to license your derived work under whatever terms you like, and allows the recipients of your derived work to use it insofar it contains parts from the original work. That's not being disputed.
What Theo is pointing out is that, according to the law, not all modifications count as producing a derived work, only "substantial" ones. If you make insubstantial modifications to a BSD-licensed work and release it, legally, you haven't released a new work, so you don't have a right to license anything at all. If you put your own copyright notice and license terms on this file, you're putting them on the same work as the original, which you do not have the right to.
Which proves that either you can't read, or you won't read.
Theo explicitly says that the theory presupposed by the term "relicensing" that's being thrown around is false. He claims that the current state, where the Linux developers in question have put additional copyright and license notices to a BSD-licensed file they have not substantially modified, is illegal. He admits that there are situations where such moves are legal; but in those situations, he thinks it is still immoral.
Did you actually read what he said in that case? I did. He repeatedly said, throughout the threads in question, that yes, GPLed code had been checked into the OpenBSD tree without the GPL license notice, and that it was an error. His dispute was not about the facts of the matter, but rather, the conduct of the people who pursued it; his claim that the morally correct way to handle it would have been to first shoot off a private email to the guy who made the error.
Didn't you ever learn to read, and to charitably evaluate the arguments of people you disagree with?
The other half, the way I read it, is as follows: if the changes you're making to the BSD file are very small, there is a question whether the result truly qualifies as a "derived work." In that case, you really ought to not put any additional copyright and license notices on the files.
Yes, it does say that. Does that mean that you can change the copyright and license notices in a GPL file at will?
Nothing that the GPL or any license says can be interpreted to mean that you are allowed to break the law. This is really what this dispute is about--the OpenBSD side claim that by altering the license notice of a BSD-released file, without making modifications substantial enough to classifiy as a derived work, the Linux developers in question are breaking the law.
You (and nearly everybody else, for that matter) are failing to distinguish between "license" and "license notice." The GPLers unquestionably stripped the original license notices from the files. IANAL, but I can tell that this is pretty stupid. The license is the only thing that gives them a right to use that file, so the original license notice is a crucial piece of documentation of the fact that they are allowed to use the file in the first place.
To paraphrase you: "I didn't read what Theo wrote."
Actually, that was uncharitable. Let me offer you a better paraphrase: "I didn't bother to try to understand what Theo wrote, because I was convinced beforehand that nothing he could say could change my mind, because my opinions are not based on anything as flimsy as evidence."
Well, I never did that. Now you've taken my detailed response to what you said, and summarized it as nothing but name-calling.
Yeah right. Tell that to middle-class black people who, no matter how they dress, act or talk, regularly have to deal with people who assume they aren't well-educated and/or economically solvent. Like going into a store and having the shopkeepers try to shoo them out because they assume they can't afford anything, or follow them because they think they're going to steal something. Or they can't get as good terms on a mortgage as white people with equivalent education or income. Or they're out working in their lawns, and somebody approaches them thinking they're professional landscapers. Or they get people telling them all the time that they're "so articulate," and "not like the other black people," or "a credit to their race," or, in general, just bringing up their race out of the blue when it ought not to be relevant to the situation. News bulletin: this shit is totally commonplace in the USA, and it's got nothing to do with how they dress, walk, act or talk, and everything to do with how their skin looks, and the inferences other people draw when they see that skin color.
Anyway, I made a general statement about the experience of being a minority in the USA, which applies to very many different situations. You responded to it by applying a racial stereotype.
I won't let this one pass by. You're privileging intent over consequences. It is of very little comfort to the victims of racism that most of the very real racism that they are subjected to comes from people with perfectly good intentions, who sincerely wish everybody would just get along. (As it is in fact.) People should strive to understand the consequences of what they do, and take responsibility for the results, regardless of their intent.
Intent does figure in the moral calculus, but it's not a get-out-of-jail-free card.