Christian Rose wrote: > sön 2003-05-11 klockan 19.28 skrev David Neary: > > I think that we can > > keep most of the advertising clauses and still be fully GPL > > compliant, in word and in spirit. > > > > The BSD/Artistic/Apache type licences all permit relicencing, so > > why not just relicence to GPL, and keep the advertising clause as > > originally requested? > > It is an additional restriction and thus clearly deemed incompatible > with the GPL (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#OrigBSD). > Additional restrictions are not allowed. To be quite honest, I think this is GNU throwing a hissy fit because BSD people don't agree with them. I believe that any challenge to the licencing of code as GPL because it contains BSD code would fail. > > If someone can give me a decent explanation why the advertising > > clause is a limitation on the liberty to modify the software, I'd > > like to hear it. Otherwise, none of this code will cause me to > > lose any sleep. > > It's still free software. It's just not compatible with the GPL. I find it ridiculous that it's OK with the BSD/Apache/Artistic licence people that anyone can use their code for whatever they want, including relicencing the code, but the GPL (or rather GNU) people refuse to accept the code. The GPL, in spirit, is very clear - GPL licenced code which is modified must be released under the GPL. Great. The BSD type licences are very clear too - do whatever you want, just say where the code came from in a comment. Great. Now, why not include BSD code, do whatever we want with it (basically, relicence it as GPL code), and leave the comment in? I don't see a problem with it. And, to be honest, anyone who considers adding a comment to the top of a source file a restriction is being seriously pedantic. Cheers, Dave. -- David Neary, Lyon, France E-Mail: bolsh@xxxxxxxx
