Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 06:43:32 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: brett@lariat.org (Brett Glass) Cc: tlambert@primenet.com, naddy@mips.rhein-neckar.de, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: If Brett only knew... Message-ID: <199902260643.XAA21693@usr05.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <4.1.19990225201741.04032520@mail.lariat.org> from "Brett Glass" at Feb 25, 99 08:24:08 pm
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
> >Besides which, their ability to do this is predicated on the license > >that we chose intentionally to allow people to do this. > > Well, there's actually some question about whether the license > DOES allow them to do this. There are two clauses in the GPL > that are problematic. First, the GPL says: You are missing the point. They are not GPL'ing FreeBSD code, they are merely proposing to create a product that is an agregate of a UCB licensed kernel and such necessary UCB licensed user space tools as are required, with the rest of the user space made up of the "standard Debian user space"... which, itself, contains some code under licenses other than GPL, as well. Then they are proposing naming the thing GNU/FreeBSD (or GNU/BSD, so they can take NetBSD's pieces for other platforms not supported by FreeBSD) to give it a Debian "brand identity". Repeat, "GNU/BSD", *NOT* "GPL/BSD". > Finally, the names "FreeBSD" and "BSD" are trademarks. You can > bet that BSDI would (justifiably) object to the use of "BSD" on > GPLed code, since (a) it would be misleading and (b) they wouldn't > be able to merge the changes into their own code base. The "BSDI" trademark is defensible. The "BSD" trademark is not defensible, since there have been "Berkeley Standard Distribution" releases for long before BSDI was formed, making it a term in common use prior to their trademark application. In addition (if that weren't enough) Bill Jolitz, on my recommendation, trademarked "386BSD". It was this fact that allowed him to refuse to allow FreeBSD to use the 386BSD name following Lynne's famous "One third of the patches in the patchkit are good, one third are benign and do nothing, and one third are harmful", with the implied "I'm not going to tell you which third is which". That the code was itching to be released anyway is the reason there is a FreeBSD instead of a 386BSD 3.1 today. This trademark predates the BSDI trademark application, and since it is a substring, the "BSD" trademark is invalid. If tested in court, BSDI could uphold "BSDI", but would lose "BSD", just as Coke, Inc. lost "COLA", and Microsoft lost "DOS". > Second, > the FreeBSD Project should not let them use the FreeBSD mark > on code that's been GPLed. It should insist that changes to > the FreeBSD kernel be released under a BSD license if the > mark is to be used. The code could not be released under a GPL license, since then they could not distribute a live system. There is some wiggle room (which no one need tell them about) for screwing up the licensing, and Jordan had consistently removed the advertising clause (can he legally do that?), and yes, it might be a good idea to make the UCB license "infectious" for derived works of the FreeBSD kernel, and such user space as necessary to implement functionality not available under Debian, under the agregate license to use the FreeBSD trademark. I actually don't think they'd have a problem with that, since they have a vested interest in not diverging from the main line source for the next time they revise their CDROM. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199902260643.XAA21693>