Discuss: BSD Protection License

[Andy Tai]

While this license probably is open source, it is
misnamed (by using the term "BSD" in its name).  It is
not a BSD license because it does NOT always "permit
improvements to be used wherever they will help,
without idealogical or metallic constraint." For
example, it does not allow the use of such code in
GPLed software.

The spirit of BSD is to allow the code to be used by
anyone, for virtually any purpose.  For example, Bill
Gates can use the code in proprietary software, and
Linus Torvalds can use the code in GPLed software. 
This BSD Protection license carries extra constraints
that limit the freedom of other people to use such
code.  It is not BSD, although Craig Mundie would love
it. "Anti-GPL" is not the spirit of BSD.

(One could even say this license is not open source
because it discriminates against people doing GPL
development, but this argument may not be very
strong.)

--- Colin Percival <colin.percival at wadham.ox.ac.uk>
wrote:
> [ Please discuss this license.  Is he reinventing
> the LGPL? ]
> 
>    I submit for your consideration the "BSD
> Protection License", as found 
> at
>
http://web.comlab.ox.ac.uk/oucl/work/colin.percival/source/BSDPL.html
>    (A plaintext version can be found by s/html/txt/
> on the URL.)
> 
>    Feel free to redistribute this as relevant (eg to
> license-discuss); I 
> have no desire to remain anonymous (and the URL
> would identify me anyway).
> 
>    The included preamble should clarify the purpose
> of this license, but to 
> summarize briefly, this license has a GPL flavour
> and a BSD spirit, and 
> exists in order to allow closed source use of
> licensed code, while 
> "protecting" the code from having that freedom
> removed.
> 
> Colin Percival
> 
> --
> license-discuss archive is at
http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3


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