Relicensing: what's legal and what's right

Posted Sep 6, 2007 7:45 UTC (Thu) by ekj (guest, #1524)
In reply to: Relicensing: what's legal and what's right by butlerm
Parent article: Relicensing: what's legal and what's right

In general yes.

But in this particular case, BSD+GPL, it has to be "take your pick", because the only alternative would be GPL-only. I'll explain.

If you aren't allowed to "take your pick", but are required to honour each and every term in *both* licenses, then it follows that not just every BSD-term must be followed, but also every GPL-term.

Everything that is allowed with a GPL-licenced program is however *also* allowed with a BSD-licenced one. But not vice-versa.

In other words, if you *pretend* that a BSD-licenced program is really GPL, you're still adhering to each and every term of the BSD-licence.

If on the other hand you pretend that a GPL-licenced program is really BSD, you're breaking quite a few terms of the GPL, namely those that require that you give changes back under the same terms when you redistribute.