Discuss: BSD Protection License

[Colin Percival]

At 11:19 12/03/2002 -0500, Forrest J. Cavalier III wrote:
>2. Except possibly for the copyleft clause 4c, the license
>fails to state that the terms apply to everyone receiving
>a copy of the software.

   Is this a problem?  I rather assumed that such a statement
would be included in the copyright notice on the software --
eg, 'Copyright 2002 by Foo Bar.  Permission is granted to
distribute this work under the terms of the license found in
the adjoining file "LICENSE".'

>1. There is no definition of the terms "open license" and "closed
>license."  (If those terms are not useful in selecting either
>clause 3 or 4, then they should not be in the wording.)

   I didn't define "Definitions", either. <ducks>
   I have no legal training, but I thought it would be clear that
"Modification and redistribution under open license" and "...
under closed license" were simply section headings.

>2. I think as worded, you must make the election of Clause 3 or 4
>as an organization, not on a work-by-work basis.

   Hmm, I'll agree that the wording is a bit unclear there.  Since
the individual clauses always refer to "the derivative work", would
it be sufficient to change "and distribute the resulting derivative
works" to "and distribute a resulting derivative work"?

>3. When read a certain way, the wording of the copyleft clause 4c
>is even more "tainting" than the GPL copyleft (ref GPL section 2).
>Such an interpretation of clause 4c doesn't seem to be in the
>spirit of the preamble, so I expect the wording can be adjusted
>to clarify.

BSDPL, clause 4(c):
You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in 
part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be 
licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of 
this License.

GPL, clause 2(b):
You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in 
part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be 
licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of 
this License.

   Err, which wording did you want to see adjusted?

Colin Percival

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