Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 4th Sep 2007 21:32 UTC
Discussion continues on the Linux Kernel mailing list about the legality and morality of re-licensing BSD/GPL dual-licensed code under only the GPL. Alan Cox replied to Theo de Raadt's comments suggesting he was encouraging people to break the law, "re-read my email and then apologize. I do question the .h files where they are BSD licence and no changes were made to the work. I also point out that the dual licence on that code appears to give permission to distribute under one of those licences by choice." In response to Theo's request that code be shared both ways rather than converted to a sole GPL, "that's about the first thing I would agree on - its somewhat rude and not something I personally would usually choose to do."
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Member since:2006-07-15
The big difference between the enfant terrible Theo and the enfant terrible Linus is advocacy. Linus got more of it, so he can easily call people Nazis (Gnome) or call other developers idiots (FreeBSD), he can rule down developers if he like so and so on. In the end people just smile "it's Linus". This is just childish behaviour of the Linux crowd. If Theo is a loud idiot, then Linus too.
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Member since:
2006-04-28
Yes, starting a war about this small issue has been a really bad idea.
Alan Cox seems to be the one in all this discussion that know what he's talking about, by the way.
The legal implication of those files under the ISC license only are complicated, anyway.
The issues with the dual licensed (BSD/GPL) files is clear. It's perfectly legal to make your changes GPL only. However, being the original code from OpenBSD it's not polite, since OpenBSD won't be able to use the improvements/bug fixes directly. But from *not polite* to stealing there is a big way. If TdR would just be more calm and polite when speaking he would have *some* point in what he claims (not legally, anyway), but what he said was at least as little polite as the original offense. That doesn't help OpenBSD or the FOSS community in any way.