License and adopting software

blubee blubeeme gurenchan at gmail.com
Tue Dec 12 05:09:42 UTC 2017


On Tue, Dec 12, 2017 at 6:09 AM, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at freebsd.org>
wrote:

> [format recovered]
>
> On Sunday, 10 December 2017 at 23:31:33 -0800, Chris H wrote:
> > On Mon, 11 Dec 2017 12:24:53 +0800 "blubee blubeeme" <
> gurenchan at gmail.com> said
> >> On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 12:21 PM, Jonathan Chen <jonc at chen.org.nz>
> wrote:
> >>> On 11 December 2017 at 17:17, blubee blubeeme <gurenchan at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>>> I like some old software that's <= GPL2 but it seems like the original
> >>>> developer is not and have not done any work on the software sine mid
> >>>> 2000.
> >>>>
> >>>> I'd like to pick up the project, fix bugs BUT i'd like to migrate
> >>>> from GPL to BSD license.
> >>>>
> >>>> How does one go about doing that? I have seen the GPL code but it
> >>>> could be re-written how would that affect me re-writing the code
> >>>> with a new copy center license?
> >>>
> >>> You basically have to get the original author to reassign copyright to
> >>> you; after which you can do whatever you like to it. If you're basing
> >>> your new work on the original work, you have to respect the LICENCE
> >>> that it came with.
> >
> > It's also worth noting; you can dual-license it. That is:
> > their code == their license
> > your code (additions) == your license
>
> No, you can't.  Read the conditions of the GPL license.  If you add
> code to a GPL product, the additions become subject to the GPL.
>
> Greg
> --
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I remember reading the history of FreeBSD and in the early days when parts
of what eventually became FreeBSD was re-written. They obviously seen the
prior closed source ATT source code and "re-wrote" it giving it a BSD
license.

It would be cool to hear how they were able to go about it.
Anyone been through the process care to share their experience?


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