[License-discuss] BSD license, source distributions and interpretations of "retain"

[David Woolley]

On 10/01/15 18:16, Michael Bradley wrote:
> Now suppose Project B’s source code is derived from Project A’s source code, but the maintainer of Project B wishes to use a different license. In an effort to avoid confusion, Project B has that different license text at the head of each of its source code files, while Project A's original license text has been moved off to a file bundled in Project B's source distributions, e.g. “licenses/ORIGINAL-PROJECTA-LICENSE.txt”.
>
> Would that be in compliance with the “retain” language in clause #1 of the 3-Clause BSD license? Is there any case law to that effect or to the contrary? References to legal write-ups on this question (or similar) would be appreciated.

This is not legal advice, but in my opinion the least B could get away 
with is the inclusion of a reference to the file in the source files 
derived from A, and possibly also a statement that the file cannot be 
redistributed without the licences file.

Especially given the shortness of the BSD licence, I would think the 
community expectation would be that the source file contained the text 
of both licences, indicating who owned the copyrights under each.  The 
paragon would be to also identify in the code which bits came under 
which copyright.

If B had not created any new copyright in the file, e.g. they did no 
more than change some customisation parameter, I would say the file 
should only contain A's copyright notice, and licence terms.