BSD and OSD

[David Johnson]

Wes Bethel wrote:

> i have the following impression which may or may not be accurate:
> Jo Coder has a closed source project which s/he turns into an
> Open Source project, using L/GPL (take your pick) as the license.
> however, when Jo makes this transition, s/he asserts copyright on
> the source.

If the original closed source project was copyrighted by Jo, then no
problemo. If it wasn't, and the license did not allow relicensing, then
it is not permissible. I am unaware of any closed source license, and
extremely few open source licenses, that allow relicensing in this
manner. Even the BSD license does not allow this in the manner you are
suggesting. If you happen to stumble across a BSD licensed file in a
GPLd package (not too uncommon), that individual file is still under the
terms of the original license, and you may freely do stuff with it that
the GPL would not allow.

David Johnson...
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