Date: 25 Jan 1999 15:47:52 +0200 From: Ville-Pertti Keinonen <will@iki.fi> To: brett@lariat.org (Brett Glass) Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Attempt to relicense BSD code under the GPL Message-ID: <867lubpipj.fsf@not.oeno.com> In-Reply-To: brett@lariat.org's message of "18 Jan 1999 18:42:29 %2B0200" References: <4.1.19990118092136.0465ede0@mail.lariat.org>
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brett@lariat.org (Brett Glass) writes: > This is not only absurd (because the GPL *is* a barrier to OS > R&D) but also illegal, because it conflicts with the licensing > provisions of the BSD code which has been incorporated into the > package. They even have code in the oskit that has much more restrictive licensing terms (than BSD or GPL). However, they do not claim anywhere that the entire oskit is subject to the GPL. I posted a message to the oskit mailing list a while ago where I pointed out their use of conflicting license terms and speculated that this may be valid if the oskit is considered several separate "programs" (libraries, actually), but that any works linking against portions of the oskit with different licenses cannot be distributed as binaries at all. > Those who are concerned about the attempted use of the GPL > (which is anti-business, anti-innovation, and sometimes referred > to as a "viral" or "cult" license) on BSD code should contact Jay The critique is valid even if you don't consider the GPL hostile. It is not a good idea to flame them for a choice of license (a lot of people consider the GPL a good thing and arguments against that are inevitably based on subjective values), only doing so improperly and with questionable legal status. Otherwise you'll very likely be ignored by some people. > Lepreau at lepreau@cs.utah.edu. Kernel authors in particular should > be outraged at the unauthorized and unwarranted GPLing of their code > and should protested what is, essentially, hijacking of their work. I don't think any of the code has been GPL'd, it is simply included in the same tarball. BSD-licensed code can't really be "hijacked", unless somebody claims it to be their own, unlike the GPL the BSD license does *not* prohibit use in projects with different licensing terms. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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