From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Oct 9 15:27:49 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 51C0D37B401 for ; Wed, 9 Oct 2002 15:27:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rwcrmhc53.attbi.com (rwcrmhc53.attbi.com [204.127.198.39]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D534A43E6E for ; Wed, 9 Oct 2002 15:27:47 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from swear@attbi.com) Received: from localhost.localdomain ([12.242.158.67]) by rwcrmhc53.attbi.com (InterMail vM.4.01.03.27 201-229-121-127-20010626) with ESMTP id <20021009222454.DYRQ28530.rwcrmhc53.attbi.com@localhost.localdomain>; Wed, 9 Oct 2002 22:24:54 +0000 Received: from localhost.localdomain (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by localhost.localdomain (8.12.5/8.12.5) with ESMTP id g99MRMoS015180; Wed, 9 Oct 2002 15:27:22 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from swear@attbi.com) Received: (from jojo@localhost) by localhost.localdomain (8.12.5/8.12.5/Submit) id g99MRGiT015177; Wed, 9 Oct 2002 15:27:16 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from swear@attbi.com) X-Authentication-Warning: localhost.localdomain: jojo set sender to swear@attbi.com using -f To: Terry Lambert Cc: Brett Glass , chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Congrats to Brett Glass for new BSD history article References: <20021008145226.K30424-100000@pogo.caustic.org> <3DA36DF9.CD52524F@mindspring.com> <3DA48E32.2F841084@mindspring.com> From: swear@attbi.com (Gary W. Swearingen) Date: 09 Oct 2002 15:27:16 -0700 In-Reply-To: <3DA48E32.2F841084@mindspring.com> Message-ID: Lines: 45 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) XEmacs/21.1 (Cuyahoga Valley) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Terry Lambert 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. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message