BSD-like licenses and the OSI approval process

[Alexander Terekhov]

On 10/13/07, Arnoud Engelfriet <arnoud at engelfriet.net> wrote:
> Lawrence Rosen wrote:
> > My copyright interest, as you suggest, does not extend to your BSD-licensed
> > work. But I read your BSD license as giving me permission to distribute your
> > work under any license I choose, including AFL 3.0, as long as I copy the
> > text of your BSD license in the source code.
>
> I agree. You can distribute BSD-licensed works under any license
> you want, provided you meet the conditions in the BSD license
> (and don't hold the authors liable for any damages).
>
> Of course, I can take Larry's distribution of the work and
> re-use it any way *I* want by simply complying with the BSD
> license conditions. I can completely ignore the AFL 3.0 for
> any parts I can identify as originally BSD-licensed.
>
> In other words, this construct is *dual* licensing, not *sub* licensing.

LOL.

In order to "multi" copyright-license something you must have a
privilege to grant the exclusive right(s) (i.e. license) it to begin
with. BSDL licensors do NOT share that privilege with their licensees
(you). That means that your purported "licensees" can stick your own
copyright license where the sun doesn't shine and totally ignore it.
The distributed work remains under the BSD license and your own
copyright license has no binding effect whatsoever.

regards,
alexander.

--
"PJ points out that lawyers seem to have difficulty understanding the
GPL. My main concern with GPLv3 is that - unlike v2 - non-lawyers can't
understand it either."
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