Hey stupid dak, here's a nice post on sublicensing. Hth. http://bsd.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=296845&cid=20592673 (IANAL, but I actually agree with Theo)
"... Here are specific points I would make: 1) While the BSDL and related licenses clearly do not have the intent to force sharing of code, they clearly *do* have the intent to provide the downstream recipients of the original elements of that code with the rights listed in the license. So Theo is right that you cannot simply wrap the BSDL in the GPL. This is particularly relevant to the GPL3 because it introduces potential license incompatibilities between BSDL-code and GPL3 code (see section 7 on removing additional permissions *without* asserting copyright). 2) Copyright law seems even in the US holds that nonexclusive licenses are clearly indivisible and do not automatically grant sublicense rights (a sublicense being a new license issued by a licensee). Some BSD-like licenses (like the MIT License) explicitly allow sublicensing the code and in this case, wrapping it in the GPL would be allowed. Otherwise, it seems difficult to make this case. Whether exclusive licenses are divisible is not yet a settle matter of law as far as I can tell (you have the Gardner v. Nike case which suggests that they exclusive licenses are indivisible, but that is the only case I can find). BTW, Mr Moglen dismisses the above issue without providing any substantive argument against it. 3) Some BSD-like licenses seem to be addressed to all downstream users and do not include the right to sublicense. The ICU licnese, for example, and the X.Org licenses start out "Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files..." and does not specifically state a sublicensing right. Thus I am not sure that the advice that these can be automatically sublicensed under the GPL is advice that is sound. For these reasons, I have been suggesting that open source project leaders should seek unbiased legal advice from people outside the community. " regards, alexander. P.S. "I'm insufficiently motivated to go set up a GNU/Linux system so that I can do the builds." Hyman Rosen <hyro...@mail.com> The Silliest GPL 'Advocate' P.P.S. "Of course correlation implies causation! Without this fundamental principle, no science would ever make any progress." Hyman Rosen <hyro...@mail.com> The Silliest GPL 'Advocate' -- http://gng.z505.com/index.htm (GNG is a derecursive recursive derecursion which pwns GNU since it can be infinitely looped as GNGNGNGNG...NGNGNG... and can be said backwards too, whereas GNU cannot.) _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
