Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2001 12:10:27 -0700 From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> To: swear@blarg.net (Gary W. Swearingen), dwalton@acm.org Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Does Linux violate the GPL? Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.2.20011224120539.01ce4170@localhost> In-Reply-To: <llelllt3h5.lll@localhost.localdomain> References: <20011223153232.4b562a74.dwalton@acm.org> <20011223153232.4b562a74.dwalton@acm.org>
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At 01:41 AM 12/24/2001, Gary W. Swearingen wrote: >Except that B hasn't really altered A's license. B is likely to even >have accompanied the derivative with a copy of the BSDL. B has merely >deceptively labeled the whole program as being under the GPL. I don't >know what legal sanctions, if any, there are for that deception, >especially when notice of the other copyright and BSDL is made >somewhere in the documentation or code. (Note that the BSDL permits >comingling of code without notice of the owner of specific code, which >results in it being done to an extent that such designations of owners >is not even possible. So even without the deception, the effect would >be much the same, namely GPL infection. :-). This brings up a larger issue. Is it ethical or even legal for someone to combine GPLed code with BSDLed code and slap the GPL on the result without stating which lines are really BSDLed? It seems to me that even if the BSDL is also present in the source file, a person has violated the BSDL by doing this because the BSDL requires that the license must follow the code. If it's no longer clear which code in the file is covered by the BSDL, the license has effectively been separated from the code it's supposed to stay with. --Brett To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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