Re: License furor

Vincent Stemen wrote:
>>People claim that this problem in the XFree86 1.1 License is similar to 
>>the "advertising clause" problem of the original BSD license.  According 
>>to the GNU GPL website, that license was GPL incompatible because of 
>>this clause in the GPL:
>>"You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise 
>>of the rights granted herein."
> 
> Interesting.  I don't think I have seen that version of the BSD
> license.  Yes, not only would that be GPL incompatible, but I think it
> would restrict the BSD code from being used in commercial derived
> products as well, similar the the GPL.  That must be a pretty old
> license.

The BSD License was revised to be its current form in 1999.
Both forms may be found here (the revised one is first):
<http://www.xfree86.org/3.3.6/COPYRIGHT2.html#4>

XFree86 4.3.0 docs claim that there are many different versions of the 
BSD license, but there have really only been two main ones (with the 
UCB/LBL being a subset of the original license, which the docs kind of 
show).
<http://www.xfree86.org/4.3.0/LICENSE4.html>

> It actually goes both ways.  You are correct that it must satisfy both
> licenses.  The reason I said you must use the most restrictive
> licenses in a combined work is because the less restrictive licenses
> such as the BSD or MIT, or even more relaxed, public domain, do not
> prevent you from adding restrictions.  That is why you can include
> their code in commercial projects.
<snip>
> That is the reason we favor the less restrictive licenses, even over
> the GPL, for primary projects, because that gives everybody more
> freedom to utilize the code in branch projects and combine code with
> code from other licenses, including commercial.

I think that you are misusing the term "commercial license" here.  By 
commercial, you really mean non-free (as in no-freedom, not as in 
don't-have-to-pay-for), closed-source license.

There is nothing in the GPL that prevents you from selling the software 
commercially.  Far from it.  You can sell GPLed software.  There are 
many companies doing it right now.  But it must stay under the GPL.  Any 
software that becomes a derivative work of GPL software must also be GPL 
software, but you can still sell it.  The only non-commercial license 
that I can think of is one that tells you that says that nobody can sell 
the software at all, including the author, and I have yet to see one 
that says that.

>>Doing my best in trying to scan over the GPL, I don't think that the 
>>modified BSD license is in reality GPL-compatible (if one is going to 
>>nit-pick in the way that they are saying that XF86 1.1 License is 
>>incompatible) because the modified BSD requires that both the source 
>>code and the binary display the BSD license and the copyright notice, 
>>whereas the the GPL only requires that the source code display the 
>>license and copyright notice.
> 
> 
> I just looked over the GPL version 2 again and it looks to me like it
> does require the license to be included with the binaries which would
> make it compatible with the BSD license.
> 
> It says,
> 
>     3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
>     under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms
>     of Sections 1 and 2 above...
> 
> Notice it says "under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above".  And under
> section 1, it says
> 
>     ...keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to
>     the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the
>     Program a copy of this License along with the Program.

"Under the terms of Section 2" makes sense, however, "under the terms of 
section 1," you are taking that "keep intact" statement out of context. 
  Section 1 still only talks about the source code, therefore "under the 
terms of section 1" when when making requirements for "object code or 
executable form" makes zero sense.  They may have tried to require that 
the license be distributed with the binaries, but they haven't.

Peace,
William