Re: 4 Clause license? - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

This whole thing is starting to make my head hurt. There has been more 
effort spent over this license issue than I would have spent if I hadn't 
taken the shortcut of using the FreeBSD code.

I think maybe the simplest thing is for me to prepare a patch that rips 
that code out and replaces it with a (slightly simpler - less umask 
hacking required, I think) piece of code that I will write.

I won't make the mistake of borrowing code again like this. (I naively 
thought using FreeBSD code would be safe, and was careful not to use any 
GPL code.)

cheers

andrew

Terry Lambert wrote:

>Erik Trulsson wrote:
>  
>
>>On Mon, Nov 17, 2003 at 02:48:08PM -0500, Rod Taylor wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>The PostgreSQL group has recently had a patch submitted with a snippet
>>>of code from FreeBSDs src/bin/mkdir/mkdir.c.
>>>
>>>http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/bin/mkdir/mkdir.c?annotate=1.27
>>>
>>>Is this intentionally under the 4 clause license or does the copyright
>>>from the website (2 clause) applied to everything that is non-contrib?
>>>
>>>http://www.freebsd.org/copyright/freebsd-license.html
>>>      
>>>
>>That copyright notice on the website should apply to everything that is
>>not under some other license.  Different parts of the system is under
>>different licenses and copyrights depending on who wrote it.
>>The mkdir.c *was* under the 4 clause license. However all material that
>>was part of the original BSDs and thus was copyrighted by "The Regents
>>of the University of California" has had its license changed such that
>>clause 3 (the advertising clause) no longer apply.
>>    
>>
>
>People seem to frequently misunderstand what a license is, and
>more specifically, what the conversion from a 4 clause to a 3
>clause license meant, in the case of the UCB License.
>
>This change does not apply to derivative works, only to the
>original code itself.
>
>So if you went back and grabbed the mkdir.c code off the BSD
>4.4-Lite2 CDROM, and used that, fine.
>
>If you grabbed the mkdir.c off the FreeBSD sources, and even one
>line was modified by someone, then it's a derivative work, and,
>unless you can also get written permission from the contributor,
>it stays under the license from which it was derived.
>
>The announcement by the University only permits the change, it
>does not mandate the change, for this very reason: otherwise
>third party redistributed code would have sudddenly become
>legally questionable.
>
>By the same token, if you dual-license some code under th GPL
>and another license, and someone gets the GPL'ed version, and
>makes changes, unless thy specifically permit it, the code
>contributed back is only licensed under the GPL.  This is why
>SGI licensing the XFS code under the GPL was a stupid move: a
>contributer contributing code back results in an improved code
>base that can only be used under the terms of the GPL, and not
>in SGI's commercial product offerings.  I believe that SGI did
>not actually expect any significant or worthwhile bug fixes or
>enhancements to come from the GPL'ed code using community.
>
>In terms of getting written approval for the license change
>from other contributors, this is basically the role that the
>Regents of the University of California and the UCB CSRG were
>fulfilling: a legal entity to whom such representations could
>be made by contributors, and who could then legally forward
>those representations to another.
>
>FreeBSD has no such legal entity, at present.  The closest you
>could come is perhaps the FreeBSD Foundation.  Had there been
>a FreeBSD Foundation from day on, to whom rights could have
>been assigned by contributors (turning it into "The FreeBSD
>Foundation and its Contributors"), then the license would be
>capable of being modified after the fact.
>
>Without that, however, you must track down all of the individual
>contributors to get the license changed.
>
>
>My recommendation is to us the code off the 4.4 BSD-Lite2 CDROM,
>if you can, live with the 4 clause license if the code contains
>changes you need, if you can, or contact the contributors, if it
>is a small enough job.  If none of those things will work for you,
>then start with the 4.4 BSD-Lite2 CDROM code, convert to the 3
>clause license, as permitted by the university, and then hack out
>whatever modifications you ned on top of that for yourself.
>
>-- Terry
>
>  
>