The Open Source Definition: 3. Derived Works

Dave J Woolley david.woolley at bts.co.uk
Wed Mar 28 12:57:28 UTC 2001


> From:	Christoph Steinbeck [SMTP:steinbeck at ice.mpg.de]
> 
> I have a problem understanding point 3. Shouldn't it be: "The license
> must ... require them to be distributed under the same terms...."
> instead of "... must ... allow them to be ...". 
> 
[DJW:]  That's one of the ways in which the GPL is more
restrictive than the OSD definition.  Such a definition
would take the BSD, XFree and various other licenses 
outside the definition, probably more than halving the
amount of software covered.

The intention is clearly that the GPL be covered by the
OSD definition, so you can be "open source" but GPLed if
you want a more restrictive definition.  Note that you 
cannot always merge software from two different OSD
compatible licenses.

I would guess that one of the main starting points for 
the OSD was that GPL and BSD licenses both be fully 
compatible.

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