qjail fork attribution was Handbook Jail Chapter rewrite available for critique (fwd)

[Ian Smith]

On Tue, 2 Apr 2013 01:00:44 -0400, Stephen Cook wrote:
 > On 4/1/2013 5:23 AM, Ian Smith wrote:

Actually, I forwarded a message that Joe <fbsd8 at a1poweruser.com> posted 
to -jail and -ports.  Proper attribution is what this issue's all about.

It's been pointed out to me privately that cross-posting is frowned upon 
in FreeBSD lists and I would usually concur, but this matter started in 
-questions and I believe that it's an issue of some public importance.

So, it was Joe who wrote:

 > > One does not have to be a lawyer to know the lack of any license verbiage
 > > embedded in computer programs released to the public becomes property of
 > > public
 > > domain forever. Putting license verbiage on your next port version is
 > > unenforceable because it's already property of public domain.

 > I don't know enough about the original disagreement to comment on it, but
 > this part is completely untrue. IANAL but I can use Google and common sense.
 > 
 > Under the Berne Convention, if there is no notice included with a
 > copyrightable work, it defaults to "all rights reserved". Until you receive
 > explicit permission, or a permissive license is included, it is assumed that
 > you *cannot* legally copy or derive from that work.

This certainly appears to be the concensus view.

 > So, if there is no license at all attached to ezjail, as you say, you are
 > infringing copyright. Luckily for you, the ezjail web page declares it to be
 > licensed as Beer Ware after all.

Hm, let's look at a Beerware licence.  There are 106 of them in /usr/src 
at 8.2-RELEASE; here's an apropos one from /usr/src/usr.sbin/jail/jail.8

.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 2000, 2003 Robert N. M. Watson
.\" Copyright (c) 2008 James Gritton
.\" All rights reserved.
.\"
   [.. standard two-clause BSD licence and disclaimer, followed by ..]
.\" 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
.\" "THE BEER-WARE LICENSE" (Revision 42):
.\" <phk at FreeBSD.ORG> wrote this file.  As long as you retain this notice you
.\" can do whatever you want with this stuff. If we meet some day, and you think
.\" this stuff is worth it, you can buy me a beer in return.   Poul-Henning Kamp
.\" 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

"As long as you retain this notice" is the issue, at least in spirit;
that is, as long as qjail's original authorship is properly attributed.  

As far as I can tell, Dirk is (rightfully) insisting only upon that.

 > Nothing personal, I just tend to correct people when they make up laws,
 > especially after a long enough period where I didn't get to criticize
 > anyone's grammar. :-)

Indeed.  Feel free to criticise mine, modulo unAmerican spelling :)

cheers, Ian