For Approval: Microsoft Permissive License

[dlw]

>  First, his does not require sublicensing since the BSD license
>  addresses every downstream recipient of the source code so licensed.
>  It does *not* require that other content *added* to such a work carry
>  the same license. Hence these components can carry with them
>  arbitrary >copyright restrictions.

The majority of open source advocates do not understand what the term 
"sublicense" means in the context of  U.S. copyright law and a 
nonexclusive license. A sublicense under copyright law is the transfer 
(with the permission of the copyright owner) of specific, existing 
contractual rights by <licensee A> to <licensee B> where <licensee A> 
*relinquishes* his rights (17 USC sec. 117). No *new * rights are 
created and a "sublicense" does not create another newly authorized 
license pursuant to17 USC sec. 106 since that is the exclusive right of 
the owner of copyright. The term "downstream licensing" from licensee A 
to licensee B to licensee C . . . is a legal fiction. You can't license 
what you don't own.

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