You are confusing the original controversial BSD licensing clause with copyright law.
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#wci "Mere ownership of a book, manuscript, painting, or any other copy or phonorecord does not give the possessor the copyright. The law provides that transfer of ownership of any material object that embodies a protected work does not of itself convey any rights in the copyright." http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html "We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the software." "You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; 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." Don't you hear stories about GPL software getting swiped into a different GPL project with the copyright notice changed and the resulting chaos? The GPL cannot subvert copyright law- it is build upon it, as clearly stated. The licensor (copyright holder) must receive modifications. If anyone can name himself the copyright holder, then the GPL is useless. For example, anyone could license Linux as closed-source simply by swiping the copyright and relicensing, which is obviously not the case. MySQL can dual-license their code because they are the copyright holders of all the MySQL code- no one else can. Also note that the Free Software Foundation (a group that fights the court battles concerning GPL'd software) recommends that the copyrights are attributed to them. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.html -------- The BSD license v1 controversy stemmed from the license requiring a print-out of contributors' names whenever the license or "advertising" was displayed. RMS successfully argued that printing out the names of thousands of people impeded the adoption of the license and Berkeley changed the terms: www.denniskennedy.com/opensourcedmk.pdf "In previous versions, the original BSD License had certain attribution requirements, including mandatory attribution and naming of contributors in advertising of software using the code that some people saw as onerous. Recent revisions have eliminated the most burdensome aspects of these requirements, including the problematic advertising clause." If anyone- even another GPL'd project- swipes GPL code and reattributes the copyright to themselves and distributes- even under the same terms of the original license- that is a copyright violation. I found out all this by searching with Google. I am not a lawyer, but I am a software developer, so I informed myself. On Nov 10, 2005, at 11:09 PM, Erich Friesen wrote: > No, if you receive a copy of a GPL'd program, you have the right to > modify it, and as long you release it under the GPL, you have complied > in full with the requirements of the license (the GPL) under which you > have received the program. There is no "copyright" violation > here. GPL > is about freedom. Telling someone they have to list someone as an > author > would take away some of that freedom. > > Recall why the original BSD license was GPL-incompatible: advertising > clause. From the fsf.org web site GPL FAQ: > > "Why is the original BSD license incompatible with the GPL? > > Because it imposes a specific requirement that is not in the GPL; > namely, the requirement on advertisements of the program. The GPL > states: > > You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' > exercise > of the rights granted herein. > > The advertising clause provides just such a further restriction, and > thus is GPL-incompatible. > > The revised BSD license does not have the advertising clause, which > eliminates the problem." > > Another example from recent history is the XFree86 Project > (www.xfree86.org), which modified their license because they wanted to > ensure they would always be listed as the authors. RMS correctly > noted > this license would be GPL-incompatible, and that is why most > distributions have switched to x.org (distributed under the GPL) > > >> From the XFree86.org website: >> > > > "Why did you modify your license? > > > David Dawes, the current President of the XFree86 Project, gave the > Project's reasons when he announced the revision on 29 January > 2004. > He noted that the main reason was to ensure that the Project and its > developers receive their full due for what they have given freely away > these past 12 years. > > What is main the difference between 1.0 and 1.1? > > The main difference is that both the source code and the binary > redistribution are now explicitly addressed and separated, because the > original 1.0 license was vague in its reference to "the Software". > > Traditionally, "Software" in the free software world has meant "source > code" but as our license allows for binary-only (i.e. no source > need be > supplied) redistributions. This made the 1.0 license rather unique in > free software, and created a glaring flaw that meant that the licence > notices "may" not always be reproduced in full. > > So the new license, unlike the old one, explicitly requires that the > copyright holders and its contributors, are to be acknowledged in the > end user documentation that accompanies redistribution, i.e. the > binary > only redistributions. The original problem has now been solved." > > It seems really clear that: > > You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' > exercise > of the rights granted herein. > > ANY, means ANY. > > Of course, erasing lists of contributors is considered to be a really > bad thing to do, as in nice and etiquette, but those who receive GPL > software clearly have the legal right to do so. > > > On Thu, 10 Nov 2005 12:51:31 -0600, "AgentM" > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: > >>> IANAL: I believe there is nothing legally preventing you from doing >>> this >>> and it is permissable under the GPL; >>> it is however considered extremely bad etiquette. >>> >> >> Huh? I am not a lawyer either but I know that Mr. Citek's >> hypothetical situation suggests a copyright violation- no different >> from erasing the publisher's copyright from a book and writing "(c) >> 2005 Mr. Sparkle". It's a lie. >> >> The GPL builds on copyright- it doesn't replace it... >> >> Note that many "open source" projects rely on this behavior to offer >> commercial licensing; for example, MySQL AB (the company) owns the >> copyright and can thus distribute the software with whatever license >> they like, regardless of the GPL. If just anyone could swipe the >> copyright, then anyone could change the license. >> >> Note that copyright is term-limited (whatever that term may be today >> thanks to Sonny Bono). >> >> |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|- >> AgentM >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|- >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> CWE-LUG mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://www.cwelug.org/ >> http://www.cwelug.org/archives/ >> http://www.cwelug.org/mailinglist/ >> > > -- > Erich Friesen > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > -- > http://www.fastmail.fm - A no graphics, no pop-ups email service > > > > _______________________________________________ > CWE-LUG mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.cwelug.org/ > http://www.cwelug.org/archives/ > http://www.cwelug.org/mailinglist/ > |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|- AgentM [EMAIL PROTECTED] |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|- _______________________________________________ CWE-LUG mailing list [email protected] http://www.cwelug.org/ http://www.cwelug.org/archives/ http://www.cwelug.org/mailinglist/
