BSD-like licenses and the OSI approval process

Chris Travers chris.travers at gmail.com
Sat Oct 13 00:17:30 UTC 2007


On 10/12/07, Lawrence Rosen <lrosen at rosenlaw.com> wrote:

>
> It could be. But then I would not claim that each item in the collection is
> also available under the terms of AFL 3.0, which was my whole purpose for
> collecting BSD-licensed software--under hundreds of BSD variants--into my
> collection in the first place.

Correct me if I am wrong, but this presupposes:
1)  The BSDL in every variant you have entered allows for
sublicenses(a point you, yourself, have stated is unclear), and
2)  The BSDL in every variant you have entered is divisible (i.e. that
a sublicense issued under its authority does not have to pass on the
complete package of terms it grants to downstream recipients of the
licensed copyrighted elements).

If either of those are false, the AFL would not govern the work, would
it?  Or am I missing something?


> I'm trying to address the BSD license
> proliferation problem by replacing them all, for practical purposes, with
> AFL 3.0, a professional open source license that accomplishes everything the
> BSD licensors intended. I'm doing it because each of those BSD-licensors
> said I could.

I am not a lawyer and you are, so perhaps you could enlighten me, John
Cowan, and others who question why we should assume the BSDL is
divisible?

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers



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