Question about a specific license

[James Michael DuPont]

--- John Cowan <cowan at mercury.ccil.org> wrote:
> James Michael DuPont scripsit:
> 
> > please advise : it this a BSD like license? 
> 
> Yes, it is.
> 
> > can I convert it to GPL? 
> > it seems that 
> > "1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
> > notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer."
> > Would prevent it from being GPLED?
> 
> It depends on what you mean.  Can you hike off the author's license
> and
> impose your own?  No, you can't do that, by both law and custom.
> Only the author gets to decide the license of a piece of code.

Sorry, I dont mean to do that exactly, it the question of my
contribution back. Do I have to put my changes under the same license,
or can I make them GPLed?

It really comes down to the question of where one software starts and
another ends. If I make a Gpled module that overrides existing
functions or have hooks into existing functions, can they be only
provided under the GPL?

It would be possible to re-sell a non-free software the does the same,
but the sources are generally not included, so no-one would be the
wiser. 

> Can you use the program to create a derivative work which you license
> under
> the GPL?  Yes, absolutely, as long as you keep the above license
> attached
> to its component and make clear that the GPL applies to the program
> as a whole.  It's commonplace to do so.

ok, I did not understand that part. I thought a GPLed license would
have to be applied to all components. That is good. 

This is basically the idea of embedding the software as a whole.

Incidently, this turns out to be an outdated version of the w3c
license,
http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/2002/ipr-notice-20021231

The new license has a better wording :
>2. The materials contained in the Site may be downloaded or copied
>provided that ALL copies retain the copyright and any other
proprietary >notices contained on the materials. No material may be
modified, edited >or taken out of context such that its use creates a
false or misleading >statement or impression as to the positions,
statements or actions of >W3C.

Thanks for your advice!

mike

=====
James Michael DuPont
http://introspector.sourceforge.net/

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