On Sat, Sep 01, 2007 at 11:39:28AM -0600, Theo de Raadt wrote:
> > In the case of the later 3 files, their copyright notice says:
> > "at your choice" you may distribute under the terms of the BSD
> > license or under the terms of the GNU GPL v2
> >
> > So if they chose to distribute those 3 files under the terms of the GNU
> > GPL v2, it is correct to change the copyright notice of those three files
> > alone in order to remove a license that the distributor chose not to use
> > anymore.
>
> Not exactly. I won't quote from the GPL again, but even the GPL has a
> paragraph about this. You must pass on the rights you received.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Yes. The *rights you received* are the central point of the question.
Which did the user receive? The BSD granted ones? Or the GPLv2 granted ones?
If some software is dual licensed, you have two sets of rights you can choose.
It's not both at the same time. The text is even explicit: "alternatively"
> The
> GPL says that passing on only a selection of rights is not fair. Don't
> trust my words, though, go read the GPL yourself.
I think that while I'm not an expert in law, over ten years of involvement
with Free Software, namely about 6 of them on the board of directors of a Free
Software association in Portugal have given me quite some experience with it.
If the user chose to use the GPL v2 rights, those are the rights he has.
The GNU GPL actually says you must license "under the same terms" as this
license, not as the copyright notice (which gives you a choice of license to
use).
I'd be happy to give you as much support as I can, since I kind of enjoy
OpenBSD more than the most popular GNU/Linux distributions on a couple of
particularly important details to my line of professional work.
Since I actually love all Free Software, either reciprocal style or non
reciprocal and it shocks me the amount of shameless FUD both sides sometime
launch.
So if you want, we can friendly chat more about this. If I ever pass around
your vicinity I would love to offer you a beverage of your choice at the
nearest spot you like :)
Best,
Rui
--
P'tang!
Today is Prickle-Prickle, the 25th day of Bureaucracy in the YOLD 3173
+ No matter how much you do, you never do enough -- unknown
+ Whatever you do will be insignificant,
| but it is very important that you do it -- Gandhi
+ So let's do it...?
