License Approval Process

[Matthew C. Weigel]

On Tue, 15 Feb 2000, John Cowan wrote:

> The "new BSD" and the equivalent MIT license are compatible with the
> GPL; the "old BSD" license with the advertising requirement is not.
> In general, a license is compatible with the GPL if it imposes the
> same, or fewer, restrictions than the GPL.

Ummm... I don't think so.  For one, Nothing is commutatively compatible with
the GPL -- software can't be redistributed under different terms[1].  Also,
if another license is as restrictive as the GPL, you probably can't license
it under different terms either, and thus you can't redistribute under the
GPL.

As far as I know only software licensed under the X and new BSD licenses can
be redistributed under the GPL without changes, but I thought some software
licensed under the old BSD had been redistributed under the GPL with a
caveat.

 Matthew Weigel
 Programmer/Sysadmin/Student
 weigel+ at pitt.edu