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old news?:
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2007

Edited. I was wrong.

Edited 2007-09-14 14:40

What snotty behaviour might I ask?

"""
some snotty behaviour from the GPL side could destroy this, leaving poor sides poorer.
"""

On the GPL side? To be fair, Theo *wrote the book* on snotty behavior.

The issue there is that two coders assert copyright on the code, when their contributions (if there was any from them at all) are far too small for them to legally assert copyright.
I'm not sure how you can see that as not being copyright violation.

I'm fully with Theo on this one.

Asserting copyright on your modifications when they are too small to be copyrightable is not a copyright violation of the BSD. Nor is it a crime. It is however a void copyright assertion and one can disregard it.

The question however is: When is a modification too small to be copyrightable? Theo de Raadt does not have the answer and nor do I - or you - for that matter. It is only the court who can decide that.

Inserting a possibly void copyright notice is not a copyright violation. It is just a possibly void copyright notice. But it is not a copyright violation in this situation. It is only a copyright violation if the license does not allow for modification of any kind.

Inserting a possibly void copyright notice is not a copyright violation. It is just a possibly void copyright notice.

Check out http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html paragraph 506:
(c) Fraudulent Copyright Notice. - Any person who, with fraudulent intent, places on any article a notice of copyright or words of the same purport that such person knows to be false, or who, with fraudulent intent, publicly distributes or imports for public distribution any article bearing such notice or words that such person knows to be false, shall be fined not more than $2,500.

If I take one of Floeters files, make a trivial change, and place my name alongside Floeters as copyright holders, I'm probably in violation of the law.

Now the Linux Atheros devs obviously did more work than that, and I'm not claiming that they are asserting copyright with fraudulent intent. But you do need to be more careful with placing copyright notices than what you suggested.

Actually not. It has to be with "fraudulent intent".

Adding copyright on something that may or may not be copyrightable is not fraud. It is only fraud if it can be proved you could not be in good faith.

Deliberately inserting a void copyright notice is fraud. But deliberately inserting a possibly void copyright notice is not fraud. One is in "good faith" because there is doubt.

If I take one of Floeters files, make a trivial change, and place my name alongside Floeters as copyright holders, I'm probably in violation of the law.

No, you are not in violation of that law. Unless you know that your work cannot be copyrighted. If you know it cannot be copyrighted and you still claim copyright then it is fraud. But we have to prove you knew it could not be copyrighted. If there is doubt about that you cannot be convicted for fraud.

The BSD license does NOT allow for sub-licensing. It's a common mis-conception because it's so close to the truth that for almost all practical purposes, it's a mute point.

The BSD license allows you to link BSD code with whatever code you want - GPL, proprietary, whatever. The BSD license also does not require you to transmit BSD-licensed source code to anyone receiving a binary copy.

This means that I can take BSD code and use it in almost any conceivable manner. I can take the code and build a closed-source application. BUT I haven't relicensed that BSD code as proprietary. If someone could separate the BSD code from my proprietary code without having the source, they are still entitled to use it under the terms of the BSD license. It has NOT been relicensed.

For example. Let's say I construct the sentence "I like baseball" and license it under the BSD license. Then you come along and decide that you're going to make it "I would like baseball if I had a beer." You've created a derivative work and placed it under the GPL. Well, sort of. Part of that code is under the GPL (the addition of "would" and "if I had a beer."), but the rest of it is under the BSD license. For almost all practical purposes, that means anyone receiving it must comply with the GPL. EXCEPT for the copyright notice/license inclusion part. That is the ONE restriction of the BSD license and unless you remove the "I like baseball" from it, you must comply with that condition.

So, a work combining BSD and GPL code must comply with BOTH licenses. The BSD license just has so few restrictions that for practical purposes you just have to worry about the GPL. NO WHERE does the BSD license say that you can ignore its requirements by changing the license. Its requirements apply to anyone using the code. Just because they are lax requirements, doesn't mean you can ignore them.

Partially, I think this is the BSD community getting annoyed that the Linux community gets so angry about people abusing the GPL yet has no respect for anyone else's license. But they are right that you CAN NOT relicense BSD code as GPL. You can LINK it to GPL code, but then you must obey the terms of BOTH licenses - including keeping the copyright and license notice in tact.

The BSD-license allows for sublicensing of the source code.

It explicitly grants you ALL RIGHTS as long as you don't remove the copyright notice and the following conditions.

Adding your own terms to the source code DOES NOT violate the conditions. The ISC/MIT/X11/BSD licenses all allow for sublicensing. Adding a license DOES NOT change the original license. It just adds another license creating an "AND" situation. And just goes for the WHOLE file unless otherwise specified.

What you CANNOT do is removing the copyright notices and the list of conditions. That would be a copyright violation.

EDIT: BTW. In this situation the Linux devs have NOT removed the original condition and copyright notices. They are left intact as you ask for. So there is no copyright violation.

Edited 2007-09-14 15:55 UTC

It explicitly grants you ALL RIGHTS as long as you don't remove the copyright notice and the following conditions.

That's not true. It only grants you rights to *distribute* AND *use* for any purpose. You have no right to relicense that code. Unless you can assert a copyright claim on your part which only happens if you make enough modifications AND it's not valid on original work.

It's clear. But Linux developers are too selfish to admit that now.

So: not just distribute and use, but you can copy it too. That is what has been happening for many years, and the BSD people never have objected to that kind of use, from proprietary distributors or GPL-ing ones.

Please note: This comment deals with the GPL literally added to the license terms, which the BSDL allows by your argument (and I think you are right there). I am NOT talking about dual-licensing.

If you add the GPL, wouldn't that make a "compund" license that contradicts to itself? First it says (from the BSDL) that you may copy/modify the source code preserving only the BSDL lines, then it says you must relicense under GPL. That's simply a contradiction in itself.

Besides the fact that if you relicense the whole under GPL only, you remove the BSDL lines which they say is not allowed.

No. Not only the BSDL lines, - but ALSO the BSDL lines. You cannot remove the BSD-license. That's very much wrong. Bad bad boy (or girl).



No, for the BSDL does not say it must be BSDL only. It just says it ALSO has to be BSDL.

It will quite correct result in a compound license (GPL+BSD). This is possible because the BSD allows for adding extra terms and does not contain terms incompatible with the GPL. This is of course not true with the old 4-clause BSD-license. That one cannot be combined with GPL. But the revised BSD-licenses can be combined with GPL.

You cannot legally relicense BSD-licensed code under GPL only. It has to be GPL+BSD unless otherwise specified. In Reyk's files there "otherwise specified" isn't there, therefore the ISC-license CANNOT be removed and it cannot be GPL-only. It can however be ISC+GPL.

But nobody are talking about GPL only. Theo claims that you cannot sublicense BSD-licensed code. E.g. you cannot use it in proprietary products or in GPL'ed projects. He is attempting to turn the BSD-license into a viral license.

Frankly, seeming how the issue is actually fixed, TdR is talking out of his rear end.

Arguing the morality of a mistake that has been rectified, due to it being considered wrong by everyone concerned, is, IMO, best described as an exercise in bloody single mindedness.

I am in full agreement with his description of the event as being amoral, but then again so does everybody else, including those that are responsible for vetting such code in the Linux kernel in th first place.

The only thing I hear from TdR at the mo is him displaying his continuing lack of understanding for duel license terms. Even the copyright holder pointed out that relicensing his duel license code solely under the GPL was perfectly legal, i.e. what he has been saying this from day one.

I wonder if, had the case back in April not been about TdR needed to backtrack on some of his statements in defense of that particular mistake, TdR would be quite as aggressive about shoving his, at best arguably relevant, point of view down everybody else's throats!

More importantly, it's Friday! Man I need a beer! ;-)

Crap.. I've only got one left. I'm suffering from ølfrygt now. Damn you

EDIT: Opened now. My last gold beer. Sláinte!

Edited 2007-09-14 16:10 UTC

I can't believe I got modded down for my comment. Oh well, i'm not gonna cry over spilled beer.

Skoal! (don't have the right set of characters on my keyboard, sorry!)

No problem. I've once tried to find it on a german keyboard O_o ... I failed big time

Danes (and Scandinavians in general have a work-around):
Aa (or with all letters in caps: AA - but only with ALL letters in caps - otherwise it is Aa) for Å, aa for å, OE/Oe for Ø, oe for ø, AE/Ae for Æ and ae for æ.

Who said Danish was difficult

The issue is that Theo and the Linux devs disagree about the correct way to fix the non-issue.

A great way to make all open source developers look like idiots :-(

I didn't even know until now that the concentration of bullshit in one article can exceed 95%. You have made it, congratulations.

>I will not let another comment about BSD being about any kind of Freedom go. exercising that right clearly does not expand to others who want a different kind of freedom for their code.

Your so-called different kind of "freedom" is a mockery of freedom at all. Think first about the word freedom, before badmouthing other people who actually live *real freedom*.

Your "freedom" is actually dictatorship, ready to wipe it through any different-minded people. Welcome to the GPL-slavery, if I hear GPL-people talking, I'm actually hearing Bushs rhetoric. Thanks for all the fish, but I'm not ready to pay the 'GPL-protection money'.

>I will not let

This is the saying of a true follower, the GPL will not allow any other freedom beside the very own dogma. Hypocrites!

Please make yourself and your guru RMS happy, vote me down. It would be a pleasure to see more of this mockery of freedom, the GPL-fetish. Quod erat demonstrandum.

I'm glad you derive pleasure from my comment. So I will make this simple RMS has little to nothing to do with the kernel. In fact this we are are mainly talking about a tit-for-tat that Linus talks about...and thats the bottom line with all of this Theo complains long and hard that BSD doesn't get the tit-for-tat. In fact you will see that he argues tit-for-tat for moral reasoning.

So here is the *bottom* line. BSD is simply the wrong license for Theo, what he needs if he wants to force his morals on others is a license that ensures that *his* code is used the way he wants.

In fact I agree with you 100%. I think that individuals should choose a license for *their* code, to be used the way they want. People shouldn't blindly license their code however enigmatic their leaders are. Unfortunately for BSD, Theo advocates a license that does not enforce *his own* morality(sic).

...but then unlike yourself I believe that it up to the individual to choose a license their code to reflect how they want it used.

Edited 2007-09-15 03:27

"""

"""

Cyclops,

I *so* agree with you!

Isn't that amazing? :-)

If what one really wants is a license with teeth... one which enforces his wishes with regards to the use of his work, he should choose a license which does that.

I respect people who put their work under a copyleft license, if that is what they really want. I equally respect people who put their work under a permissive license, if that is what they really want.

But people who put their work under a permissive license, and then whinge unrelentingly when someone follows the terms of that permissive license... are just pathetic.

I can see making the mistake once. But over and over again?

-Steve

Who says there is anything wrong with BSD-licensed code? Or anything wrong with the BSD license?

Doesn't it depend on the intent with the sources?

The Haiku project primarily uses the MIT-license because they want the code to be used as much as possible - in GPL'ed as well as proprietary products. And with such an intent the MIT-license (or the ISC/X11/BSD licenses are perfect choices).

I read the article before it was submitted to OSNews.

Eben Moglen and FSF have nothing to do with this, despite Theo's conspiracy theory about being "trapped by FSF".

The fact that the Linux-devs have chosen to sublicense the code in question doesn't mean that they think there is anything wrong with the BSD-license.

It is just a bunch of brainless BSD-fanatics that want us to believe that is the case. Theo has been changing his explanation constantly in his Holy Crusade against the Linux-devs. Theo is the one that hates the BSD-license because he is trying to change the meaning of it. He's trying to turn the BSD-license into a viral license.

many people (with their own agenda)
does anyone not have a agenda? Certainly trying to make linux look like a kludge, hack and full of stolen code would be a agenda....woudn't it?

That case was actually resolved. By the developer simply deleting all code in question.

If you had read that thread, you'd know perfectly well some of the facts surrounding it, including that Michael Buesch was being a complete asshole about it from start.
You'd also know that Marcus Glocker despite all that tried to talk about it, but was completely ignored until he posted 11 hours later that he chose to give up completely.

The current case is (as of article submission time) not resolved despite it being weeks in the brewing. If you don't see why, or the differencies between the two cases, maybe you should go back to reading, and try to actually understand what they were about and how they were handled.

You should also take special note of Reyk's posts in the thread you supplied.

And Thom acted like an asshole. Both parts actually f--ked up royally about that.

Aaah well.. The "Thom" should've been "Theo". What the heart is filled with will pass the lips (or how it translates into English).

If you had read that thread, you'd know perfectly well some of the facts surrounding it, including that Michael Buesch was being a complete asshole about it from start.

Kind of like how Theo has been an asshole from the start? By the way, this doesn't sound very rude to me:

"We're not out for blood, just for a fair resolution."

Compare that with what Theo said:

Absolutely NOT! Only the author/owner of a license may change the license, that is enshrined in copyright law. And didn't you read what was being deleted? The license SPECIFICALLY says:

* Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any
* purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
* copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.

How much simpler could the text be? A grade 5 student could tell you that means "you may not delete it".

maybe you should go back to reading, and try to actually understand what they were about and how they were handled.

I think you should take your own advice and read up on exactly what this is about.

If I remember correctly, the __author of the code__ had already stated that it was licensed under:

"... BSD license ... ... OR the GPL v2 ...".

What part of "... BSD license ONLY ..." did I miss in the original post?

BTW, it was also confirmed by the author that the proposed changes in the first submission (that were rejected, BTW) were legal based on the dual "OR" license clause he had put in the code.

But, to keep with the good intentions, the kernel group only accepted the code after the BSD clause was left in.

As someone noticed in another thread, it's interesting that Theo only made the "... brothers in code at the GPL camp ..." comment after being shown he was incorrect in his interpretation of the license statment in the code.

Couldn't agree more, I think Theo has done a lot of good but this time he is way off base. I will say that he is a man that will fight to the end but when your wrong your wrong and you should let it go.