OVPL and open ownership

[Alex Bligh]

--On 26 July 2005 12:18 +0200 Chris Zumbrunn <chris at czv.com> wrote:

>> What I think Ernest was proposing is either mandating a BSD license
>> for contributions, or alternatively (and this may be better) forcing
>> the ID to relicense anything he incorporates into the proprietary
>> version
>> under a BSD license, allowing others to do the same.
>
> What do you mean with the last bit "allowing others to do the same"? That
> others would be allowed to create proprietary versions as well? Assuming
> you do not mean that, requiring contributions to be BSD would still not
> fix the "discrimination" that a contributor has to grant rights to the ID
> that the ID did not grant to others.

Yes it would. Anyone can do what they like with BSD licensed code. IE
if contributions were BSD licensed, or if the ID was forced to
BSD-sublicense any code from Contributions used by the ID in the
ID's proprietary versions, then ANYONE could build proprietary versions,
because you can build proprietary versions using BSD code.

(proprietary versions meaning executable versions distributed under
another license where the distributor is not mandated to make available
the source).

The only advantage that the ID would retain is that their ORIGINAL
code would not be BSD-licensed, therefore proprietary versions made
by others could not include the ID's own code. The extent of this
restriction depends upon how significant the ID's own code remains
in the code base. Which is one of the merits of the suggestion.

Alex