On Fri, Dec 14, 2007 at 08:06:35PM -0700, Theo de Raadt wrote:
> > > Yes, I grant you the right to use my software in any application you
may
> > > write and make money with, but I *DO NOT* grant you the right to modify
my
> > > license in any ways. See bellow if I would publish this:
> >
> > If you use a BSD licence, you are allowing your code to be included in a
> > proprietary application under a proprietary licence, and there is no
> > requirement for your parts of the source to be distributed under the BSD
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > licence by the proprietary developers.
>
> When a vendor distributes parts of our source code -- as source code,
> the license is extremely clear. Let me quote it, and mark it up a
> bit:
>
> * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
> * modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> * are met:
> ^^^^^^^
> * 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> * notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> Is that too hard to read?
I'm not suggesting that the licence of the BSD code should be violated,
but that it's possible for it to become covered by an additional licence
- an application, under either a proprietary EULA or the GPL, that
includes some code under a BSD licence. The BSD licence does not cease
to apply, but the non-BSD developer is not required to make *their changes*
to the BSD code available under the BSD licence. A proprietary developer
can modify it and keep the changes to itself. A GPL developer can modify
it and release the changes under the GPL, though any unmodified code
would still, of course, be under the BSD licence.
> > Now, I must admit that the second part doesn't seem quite right to me,
> > and I believe that the GPL-software developers should release any
> > changes to your sections of the code under your licence.
>
> Not should. MUST. Read the license text again. Even if it was not
> stated in the licence term, it is a Copyright right which the author
> retains unless he surrenders it.
They're not required to make their changes available. They're required
to acknowledge your copyright, but your licence does not require
proprietary developers to release changes at all and it does not require
GPL developers to release changes under your choice of licence.
> > The BSD licence doesn't allow the changing of the licence,
>
> None of the licenses we are talking about allow "changing the
> license".
>
> > but it
> > doesn't prevent extra restrictions being added to it.
>
> That's bullshit. Read it again. The BSD license gives the recipient
> some abilities, but retains others. One of those is that the source
> code must retain the license. Other restrictions... why do we care?
> Our code is still alive.
>
> HP and Cisco has included OpenSSH -- with changes they did not give
> back we are sure -- in all their router products, and none of you
> would argue that the world is not a richer place because of that. As
> a result of our giving nature, the internet at large is much more
> secure now.
This is my point exactly: why should a GPL developer be forced to give
their *changes* back? They're still required to acknowledge your
copyright, but if HP and Cisco are permitted to keep changes to
themselves, why shouldn't the GNU project or the Linux kernel do so (or,
rather, release their changes to the code under a licence that isn't
useful to OpenBSD).
Please note that I don't think it's at all fair for a free software
project to behave like that, and modifications to OpenBSD code should be
given back to OpenBSD, but if a proprietary company doesn't have to give
changes back to OpenBSD in a way that's useful to OpenBSD, why should
GNU or Linux be required to do so?
Ben
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