Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2000 08:38:43 -0500 (EST) From: Michael Lucas <mwlucas@blackhelicopters.org> To: KDavis@palmerdodge.com (Davis Kimberly) Cc: FreeBSD-Questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Additional Copyrights in Source Files Message-ID: <200002181338.IAA08284@blackhelicopters.org> In-Reply-To: <83D4DE5D3B1BD311B0D8009027719DAB018D0CDE@PDMAIL> from "Davis, Kimberly" at "Feb 18, 2000 8:22:59 am"
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Hello, First of all, I'm not a lawyer, nor am I an official representative of the FreeBSD project. I do publish a fair amount about FreeBSD, however. Many source files distributed with FreeBSD contain additional copyrights. While those copyrights cannot be removed from the source files, they are part of FreeBSD and freely modifiable and redistributable. The Vinum subsystem, for example, is copyrighted by a third party but released under the BSD license. FreeBSD itself is licensed under very liberal terms. If your client obtained it from a FreeBSD FTP archive, or from the CD-Rom distribution, they can use it freely. We want our code spread as widely as possible, and encourage reuse of what our developers have done. Each FreeBSD distribution also contains third-party tools which might be licensed under other terms. (The GNU utilities come to mind.) Those you will have to treat as their licenses require. If they obtained FreeBSD from a third party, who made some modifications to FreeBSD before they handed it on, then they need to check with that third party about the licensing on their modifications. If you're not sure where the client received FreeBSD from, check their copy against an official distribution. Any number of people here would be happy to contract their services for such a task. Without knowing exactly which components you're talking about, it's hard to say what exactly you may do with it. Regards, Michael Lucas > We represent a client who wishes to distribute FreeBSD in combination with > additional proprietary products which are designed to interface with > FreeBSD. Unfortunately, it is not clear where they obtained FreeBSD, and > the FreeBSD source files they possess include certain copyright notices (in > addition to FreeBSD's) which do not contain an express license grant for our > client to modify or distribute the software. Can our client be assured that > any FreeBSD product, including modified versions, may be further modified > and distributed under a license which is published at FreeBSD's website, > regardless of the source from which our client obtained the FreeBSD product > and regardless of the other copyright notices contained in the code? Or > does the existence of the other copyright notices in the source files mean > that our client must also obtain the permission of those copyright holders > in order to further modify and distribute that version of the software? > Thank you for your assistance. > Kim > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?200002181338.IAA08284>