Dave Jones apparently doesn't think BSD is GPL-compatibleeither...

Natanael Copa natanael.copa at gmail.com
Wed Aug 16 22:44:10 UTC 2006


2006/8/15, Rob Landley <rob at landley.net>:
>
> On Monday 14 August 2006 9:59 am, Natanael Copa wrote:
> > > Because the BSD license text is not a copyright notice, it's a
> license?
> > > (Copyright and license aren't the same thing.)
> >
> > IANAL but I still don't see how keeping the license text is an additinal
> > restriction. You have to keep the license text in GPL too.
>
> A) You don't have to keep the license text in your program, no.  None of
> our C
> files have the complete license text, and we changed the boilerplate of
> the
> permission grants (which said to mail away for a copy of the license
> text).


So why does FSF say that the BSD license is compatible with GPL then?

B) It's not the same license text, it's some _other_ license text.  Can we
> be
> required to keep a complete copy of Linconln's gettysburg address in each
> of
> our source files without violating the GPL as well?


Can't you change one line and redistribute the derived work as GPL?
According to mjg59 on
http://kernelslacker.livejournal.com/48630.html?thread=140534#t140534 you
can.

C) http://www.linuxtoday.com/developer/2004021803026NWDTLL


This is about the xfree86 1.1 license that added an extra requirement for a
credit and not about the BSD license.

I re-read this thread and the
http://kernelslacker.livejournal.com/48630.html comments you originally
mentioned.
Kernelslacker (who said BSD license was uncompatible) concluded with: "You
are correct. I don't know what I was thinking. (Arguably, I wasn't)."

IMHO, if you need to rewrite BSD licensed code only because its not
compatible with GPL, then has both the BSD license and the GPL license
failed to do what it is supposed to: prevent reinventing the wheel.

-- 
Natanael Copa
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