question about bsd-style license requirements - accidental recipr ocity?

[John Cowan]

Michael Sparks scripsit:

> In your case you're talking about a proprietary SOURCE release, but even
> so, similar _principles_ can apply. Since you don't own the original code,
> you don't have the right to relicense the code under different conditions
> without the agreement of the license holder. 

True in this case and in many cases, but not in every case.  In
particular, certain licenses are "sublicensable", which means that
you can change the license to one of your own choice.

Of the currently OSI-approved licenses, the following at least are
sublicenseable: the AFL, the Apache license 2.0 (but not 1.1), the CPL
and the IBMPL, and the MIT license.  The BSD lacks such a provision.
Some copyleft licenses are sublicenseable, but only under the
same license as the original.

Thanks to Larry Rosen for explaining the concept.

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