Date: Tue, 26 May 2015 22:17:42 +0200 From: Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de> To: =?UTF-8?B?zprPjs+Dz4TOsc+CIM6RLg==?= <k.anastasakis@protonmail.ch> Cc: "freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: About the FreeBSD license Message-ID: <20150526221742.c0e3676f.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <57c055d5fe4a3efe6b046c012ffca038@protonmail.ch> References: <57c055d5fe4a3efe6b046c012ffca038@protonmail.ch>
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On Tue, 26 May 2015 10:17:51 -0400, Κώστας Α. wrote: > One of the restrictions of the FreeBSD license is that one > cannot claim foreign code as his own. This is a common property of copyrighted code. Note that the (quite liberal) FreeBSD license does _not_ give up copyright on the licensed code. There may be (custom) licenses that allow you to take someone else's code, add your own copyright header, and (without getting into trouble) claim that it's _your_ code. The FreeBSD source code contains copyright information and license terms that do not state so. > However, couldn't one misuse the license by making just enough > changes to a previously open source project so as to make it > indistinguishable from the original, then publishing it as > proprietary and not crediting the original authors? Doesn't > that break said restriction? The license explicitely allows (!) you to make changes to the code. This is not a violation of license terms. And of course you are the copyright holder of the changes. You may license your changes in any way you want - use the FreeBSD license, use a different license (CDDL, GPL etc.) or write your own. However, this does _not_ affect the initial copyrighted code. Distribution in _binary_ form is a very special case. The license allows you to distribute modified source, and you don't even have to disclose the fact that the "bowels" of your project contain FreeBSD code. In fact, it's quite possible that many manufacturers are using BSD-licensed code in their software or appliances without telling the customer so, and of course without offering the source code of their (now proprietary) products. As you will see, additions (which means changes) to the FreeBSD code does not change the license of said code. You are not allowed to remove the copyright information and the license text from the source files, run a few identifier substitutions, then add your own copyright header and claim it is your code. Fun fact: You _can_ copyright empty files and "Hello World!". You need to be a big corporation to do so, but... ;-) http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/humor/ATT_Copyright_true.html https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/getStarted/application/examples/HelloWorldApp.java -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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