*BSD News Article 57122


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From: erik@kroete2.freinet.de (Erik Corry)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,comp.unix.misc,gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Followup-To: comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.unix.advocacy,gnu.misc.discuss
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 1995 02:25:13 GMT
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Jordan K. Hubbard (jkh@violet.berkeley.edu) wrote:
: In article <DJ6y7H.MIE@kroete2.freinet.de>,
: Erik Corry <erik@kroete2.freinet.de> wrote:
: >I'm basing this on a post I have unfortunately lost from Russel
: >Nelson (I think. Or was it Alan Cox? I may be getting them mixed
: >up because of the Welsh connection). He said he had consulted
: >a lawyer on the subject, who told him that the prohibition
: >against using certain names in advertising in the BSD license
: >counts as an additional restriction in the sense of the GPL,
: >and hence they conflict.
: 
: That is utterly absurd.  The BSD copyright claims that you can't
: use the name of UCB or the Regents in advertising.  That is,
: you can't put "FooBSD - the official operating system of
: the University of California, Berkeley!" all over your CD cover.

: This is an "encumbrance?"  I can't put "Official Operating System
: of the U.S. Olympic Team" on the cover either, but that hardly
: constitutes a hardship.

It's not a hardship. It's not because people are _upset_ about
this requirement that they don't mix BSD and GPL code. It's
simply because it conflicts with the GPL, which says:

> You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise
> of the rights granted herein.

This means the product cannot be released under both the BSD and
the GPL licenses, since the BSD license imposes a further
restriction on the recipient.

Actually, I have always been irritated by that clause in the BSD
license, anyway. There seems to be a sliding scale between using
the initials 'B, S and D' in your product title, through mentioning
in the brochure that the product was based on the 'Berkeley
Standard Distribution' to the quote you suggest above. I have to
mention the authors in the doc, but I am forbidden from doing
so in the advertising!  What if I advertise by providing free,
documented demo versions?

Personally I would be pleased if the GPL and the BSD licenses
were compatible. I would send improvements to BSDed programs
to the authors under the GPL. If they refused to accept, I
could distribute the patches and binaries on sunsite, where
Linux users and others could benefit from them, while I could
use the license I prefer: GPL.

You can put "Official Operating System of the U.S. Olympic Team"
on the cover, you just have to clear it with the U.S. Olympic
Team. But you don't have to change the license, so this has
nothing to do with the software license.
 
: [with the GPL] the question of distributing source for
: binaries (especially if you're producing some product like
: "router on a floppy") just gets too complex.

Now that is what I really call a specious argument. With the
current cost of CDs tending towards the cost of a floppy, that
is just not relevant. In addition, you have two options in case
a CD is too expensive for you:

> b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
>     years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
>     cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
>     machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
>     distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
>     customarily used for software interchange; or,
> 
> c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
>     to distribute corresponding source code.  (This alternative is
>     allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
>     received the program in object code or executable form with such
>     an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

: Also, just for the record, we HAVE done kernels that had GPL'd code
: in them. 

I don't think it was legal to distribute those kernels. Did you
consult a lawyer (just out of interest)?

-- 
I am not a lawyer.
--
Erik Corry ehcorry@inet.uni-c.dk