BSD legal question

Ted Mittelstaedt tedm at toybox.placo.com
Thu May 19 12:38:33 PDT 2005



> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Jan Grant
> Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 6:36 AM
> To: Ted Mittelstaedt
> Cc: Danny Pansters; freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> Subject: RE: BSD legal question
>
>
> On Thu, 19 May 2005, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
>
> > Suppose I distribute a library that is under my own copyright,
> > yet carries a BSD-like license.
> >
> > Suppose you then come along and take my library, and a GPLed
> > library, link both of them together into a new program of yours.
> >
> > The FSF says that the entire code now becomes GPL.
>
> That's not true. The GPL requires you to license any distributed code
> derived from GPLed code under the GPL.

This is a hairsplit since FSF=GPL, but yes, technically it's not the FSF
saying the entire code now becomes GPL, it's the GPL saying that the
entire
code now becomes GPL.

> Since, as you point out...
>
> > The problem here is that since you never owned copyright on
> > my library, you do not have legal rights to modify the copyright
> > and license on it.  Thus, you cannot legally apply GPL to it.
> > Nor can the FSF or anyone else apply GPL to it.
>
> ... the conclusion is that you cannot *distribute* the derived
> program;
> NOT that it magically relicenses code you've used to build it.
>


Except that this is only the case if your definition of distribution
is limited like the FSF's.

That is exactly why the FreeBSD ports system was created.

The idea behind ports is that 'unknowledgeable user' who I will
refer to as a UU, can go to the ports, flick a switch (type
make install) and whala- instantly the GPL licensed libraries that
the FSF wants to prevent you from distributing with your nasty
BSD stuff, are FTP'ed from whatever dark hole that
they come from, the nasty BSD stuff is FTP'ed from wherever it
comes from, the mixmaster is turned on at high speed and Bing!
Instantly the UU has your intermixed program, while you have neatly
avoided the little trap that the FSF has built to prevent UU's
from getting ahold of nasty intermixed stuff!

The result is the same as if you build your program, and thoughtfully
distribute intermixed source for your UUs - which runs afoul of the
FSF's daffynition of distribution.  The FSF never envisioned that
someone would actually go to the trouble of creating something like
the FreeBSD ports software when they wrote the GPL, so they fortunately
didn't define that kind of distribution mechanism in their license's
definition of "distribution"

But you can bet that if they had known Ports was coming, they would
have written language proscribing that kind of distribution in the
GPL.

Another more obvious note is that the 'configure' script doesen't have
that fetching capability in it - although it would be trivial to add.

Ted



More information about the freebsd-questions mailing list