BSD and OSD

[Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M.]

I agree  with David. No problem with the hypo as you posed it.

___________________________________
Rod Dixon
Visiting Assistant Professor of Law
Rutgers University School of Law - Camden
www.cyberspaces.org
rod at cyberspaces.org
> -----Original Message-----
> From: arandir at meer.meer.net [mailto:arandir at meer.meer.net]On Behalf Of
> David Johnson
> Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2000 10:20 PM
> To: Wes Bethel
> Cc: license-discuss at opensource.org
> Subject: Re: BSD and OSD
> 
> 
> Wes Bethel wrote:
> 
> > i have the following impression which may or may not be accurate:
> > Jo Coder has a closed source project which s/he turns into an
> > Open Source project, using L/GPL (take your pick) as the license.
> > however, when Jo makes this transition, s/he asserts copyright on
> > the source.
> 
> If the original closed source project was copyrighted by Jo, then no
> problemo. If it wasn't, and the license did not allow relicensing, then
> it is not permissible. I am unaware of any closed source license, and
> extremely few open source licenses, that allow relicensing in this
> manner. Even the BSD license does not allow this in the manner you are
> suggesting. If you happen to stumble across a BSD licensed file in a
> GPLd package (not too uncommon), that individual file is still under the
> terms of the original license, and you may freely do stuff with it that
> the GPL would not allow.
> 
> David Johnson...
> _____________________________
> http://www.usermode.org
>