Relicensing: what's legal and what's right

Posted Sep 5, 2007 13:13 UTC (Wed) by dag- (guest, #30207)
In reply to: Relicensing: what's legal and what's right by nofutureuk
Parent article: Relicensing: what's legal and what's right

But still, if a GPL-person takes code from a BSD-person, what's the most logically ethical correct decision to make? I guess tit-for-tat / give and take.

I do not agree. It would certainly be the nicest, but the fact that BSD was chosen as a license to me means that the developer allows you to do with it as you please. Otherwise he would have chosen another license.

So I have a big problem when now, contrary to what the license allows, they expect things that are not written in full.

Sure it is nicer, but they can not expect that. Let alone demand it. That's why I think the BSD-crowd silently envies the smartness of GPL (or a similar license).

If they loudly claim that the BSD license is more free than the GPL, than they have to face those consequences. And I think it is hypocritical to loudly provoke Linux developers (or the community as a whole) and minimize the actions of commercial/proprietary vendors (which is not as transparant). Why not just assume that the commercial interest in BSD is 1000x bigger than the Open Source community, but simply not visible ?

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Relicensing: what's legal and what's right

Posted Sep 5, 2007 15:30 UTC (Wed) by nofutureuk (subscriber, #3116) [Link] (5 responses)

And I think it is hypocritical to loudly provoke Linux developers (or the community as a whole) and minimize the actions of commercial/proprietary vendors (which is not as transparant).

Taking out a license, and replacing it with a more restrictive one is the provocation here I think. but hey...

Relicensing: what's legal and what's right

Posted Sep 5, 2007 15:59 UTC (Wed) by dag- (guest, #30207) [Link] (4 responses)

Taking out a license, and replacing it with a more restrictive one is the provocation here I think. but hey...

How can it be a provocation when the license specifically and intentionally allowed to do that ?

Relicensing: what's legal and what's right

Posted Sep 5, 2007 16:03 UTC (Wed) by nofutureuk (subscriber, #3116) [Link] (3 responses)

I am not a lawyer, but I am not sure that re-licensing without explicit permission is allowed. The license is intended to allow code-reuse, not license replacement.

Relicensing: what's legal and what's right

Posted Sep 5, 2007 16:59 UTC (Wed) by dag- (guest, #30207) [Link] (2 responses)

Have you not read the above article ? Are we talking about the same incident ? What is so hard to understand in the following piece of the dual-license:

Alternatively, this software may be distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License ("GPL") version 2 as published by the Free Software Foundation.

This is about distributing with a different license, which is what re-licensing really is.

Relicensing: what's legal and what's right

Posted Sep 5, 2007 17:13 UTC (Wed) by nofutureuk (subscriber, #3116) [Link] (1 responses)

Have you not read the above article ? Are we talking about the same incident ? What is so hard to understand in the following piece of the dual-license: ...

Yes you are right. But I really want to emphazise on culture rather than the legality of this single patch for this driver.
Also I am unsure (and uninformed) about what other communication went on between the developers in this case. I do not want to investigate the exact happenings with this case, but point people to the fact that not the BSD licensing scheme is to blame, but the way people tend to be overzealous with pretending to know what the "right" license is for others and/or denouncing people expressing their expectations/wishes.
I am simply saddened when I see GPL zealots BLAMING BSD developers for expressing their feelings/expectations about code-sharing.

Relicensing: what's legal and what's right

Posted Sep 5, 2007 17:39 UTC (Wed) by dag- (guest, #30207) [Link]

Well, then I think your perception is influenced by the fact that most response is to the way the OpenBSD handles their communication. If you read the threads on LKML, you can clearly see that the developers are concerned about working together with upstream.

The problem in this and previous incident is the communication (read: lack of diplomacy) and the disproportion of action and reaction. How you perceive the communities comes out of that and your personal interest, I guess. I haven't seen anyone blame the BSD, nor have I seen GPL zealots in these discussions. I don't think that has been the core of the argument.