BSD 4 clause license issue

Erik Andersen andersen at codepoet.org
Wed Oct 27 07:49:20 UTC 2010


On Wed Oct 27, 2010 at 08:40:11AM +0200, <redacted> wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I came across a licensing conflict regarding uClibc.
> After checking the source code in uClibc-0.9.29.tar.bz2 and found the following files
> libc/string/arm/bcopy.S
> libc/string/arm/memmove.S
> libc/string/arm/memcpy.S
> libc/string/arm/memcpy.S
> libc/string/arm/bzero.S  ,
>  all of them written by Neil A. Carson and Mark Brinicombe are licensed  under  a BSD - 4 clause style  with Advertising  Clause - NetBSD  which is in conflict with GNU General Public License according to http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLIncompatibleLicenses<http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html%23GPLIncompatibleLicenses>

Apparently the upstream NetBSD source repository has obtained
whatever permission they needed to adjust the licensing.
http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/src/common/lib/libc/arch/arm/string/

For example, for memmove.S, revision 1.3 is tagged with
	"Remove clause 3 and 4 from TNF licenses"
while retaining the same source and author attribution.

Thus I think it would be fine to similarly remove clause 3 and 4.
Since my name is in there, I am of course perfectly ok with
this change.

> Also libc\inet\getaddrinfo.c  which has the copyright
>   Copyright 1996 by Craig Metz
>   Copyright (C) 2000-2006 Erik Andersen andersen at uclibc.org<mailto:andersen at uclibc.org>  and is licensed under The Inner Net License V2.00 which also has an advertising clause  is also in conflict with GPL.

This one is appears to be more difficult.  While I would be glad
to remove the BSD clause 3 and 4, I cannot do so without
permission from Craig Metz.  Quoting the source code: "If these
license terms cause you a real problem, contact the author".
Perhaps hunting down Craig Metz may be in order...

 -Erik

--
Erik B. Andersen             http://codepoet-consulting.com/
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