Can you alter the MIT license?

Scott Johnston johnston at vectaport.com
Mon Nov 15 23:58:45 UTC 1999


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>From: Jules Bean <jmlb2 at hermes.cam.ac.uk>

>In particular, the GPL says that you must make available the source of the
>whole work.  Now this is an additional restriction on top the the MIT one,
>but it's not in conflict with the MIT one - it doesn't ask you to do
>anything you aren't allowed to do.

I see.  This is what Bruce must have meant (about adding terms to the MIT
license that are not in conflict with the original terms).  Know of anyone
doing this, adding a copyleft term to a non-copyleft piece of free software?
 I've considered it doing this with ivtools, and asked for feedback from
users.  I got one strong and well reasoned response that opened my eyes to
the partially immutable nature of the MIT license.  Since then I have thrown
out all the years of assumptions about the BSD license and am trying to
rebuild my understanding from the ground up. 

Scott Johnston
http://www.vectaport.com/ivtools/






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