spike1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> did eloquently scribble:
> > A shadow lies upon all BSD distributions
> Um... BSD doesn't use the GPL. And any GPL code they do use they honour.
> What are you on about?
Normally there isn't an issue. In fact, many authors of BSD code have
also released the same code in GPL as part of GNU. Each license is
separate and distinct, and since the author owns the copyright, he has
the right to publish under both licenses.
Another example of publishing a work under two licenses would be the
"home license" which permits the purchaser of a CD to play it for
personal use, and members of his household. But the same CD, when
played by a disk jocky at a nightclub, is published under a different
license. Under the terms of this license, the club plays a flat
monthly rate and records all of the songs that have been played for the
month.
Where things get complicated is when someone enhances, upgrades, or
extends the GNU licensed code under the GPL. They may be quite willing
to publish the same derivative product for BSD, but this cannot be
assumed. Just because a new movie is showing in the movie theater,
doesn't mean that you can tape it with your CamCorder and send the
publisher $20 for the "personal use" license.
On the other hand, the very nature of the BSD license says that
corporations who want to create derivative products are welcome to do
so. And companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Sun, and IBM, among many
others, are more than happy to take advantage of this. Again, this is
all covered by the terms of the license.
Where things get tricky is when someone creates a really great
enhancement to the GPL code, by calling GPL code, and now the BSD users
and the derivative makers want the same capabilities. The problem is
that unless the creator of all of the enhancements, including the code
called by the common code, is republished under BSD licenses, the rest
don't get the upgrade. But this creates a nasty little problem. Here
is this great new feature, and the copyright owner(s) know that it's a
really great new feature, and some guy from Microsoft, the company who
has openly declared that anyone who would publish open source software
must be a complete idiot. And here is the complete idiot, who will
settle for no less than $350 million for his 200 line subroutine - well
done Mr Hovsapien :-D
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