Date: 09 Oct 2002 15:27:16 -0700 From: swear@attbi.com (Gary W. Swearingen) To: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> Cc: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Congrats to Brett Glass for new BSD history article Message-ID: <pnn0pn45a3.0pn@localhost.localdomain> In-Reply-To: <3DA48E32.2F841084@mindspring.com> References: <20021008145226.K30424-100000@pogo.caustic.org> <3DA36DF9.CD52524F@mindspring.com> <lnadln5wox.dln@localhost.localdomain> <3DA48E32.2F841084@mindspring.com>
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Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> writes:
> They refused to disclose the information. There is also some
> question about the derivation of works.
There's "some question" about a lot of things, in my mind, but you've
convinced me to accept (in context) the rough claim and concept that
"BSD was always free" in the sense of "licensed for no cost to anyone
for the purposes of local use without publishing copies or derivatives".
I still wonder if it's true for the whole of every BSD version, but
maybe that's negligible; I'll certainly neglect it until I get
interested enough to do much more research. And I'll probably continue
to protest the claim if it's given without a halfway decent explanation
that's reasonably accurate and non-misleading.
> For the Net/2 distribution, which was the second distribution of
> a VM BSD, with the derivative work portions excoriated, almost
Thanks for learn'n me a new use for the word "excoriate".
("To tear or wear off the skin of; abrade; chafe.)
> Similarly, UCB attempted to withdrawl the Net/1 and Net/2 code,
> which they felt they had a right to do, under the same legal
> theory. Not everyone complied, and the withdrawl was not legally
> enforced (it was a "de juris" threat, a use of a legal club, and
> generally uneforcible).
I think we've mentioned before that the licensor can only (?) withdraw
his license after restoring the licensee (finacially?) to his status
when the license was first granted. This probably means that the
licensor could withdraw the license to publish derivatives, without any
need to compensate most licensees. It's seems like a risk that
liberally-licensed software projects should (and could) remove.
> Perhaps. But they were not permitted to recover such costs
> externally, so the accounting tricks only mattered to their
> bottom line tax bill.
But that doesn't matter for the issue of whether the code (BSD) was
fee-licensed by an owner (eg, Bell Labs) to some company (eg, AT&T),
making it non-free, very (and too) strictly speaking. A nit-pick.
Thanks for the information; it was very helpful to the discussion.
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