Contributed by dwc on 2007-09-01 from the sharing-is-caring dept.

Theo de Raadt wrote a response (on misc@) to the recent licensing issues.

List: openbsd-misc Subject: That whole "Linux stealing our code" thing From: Theo de Raadt Date: 2007-09-01 1:40:52 [bcc'd to Eben Moglen so that people don't flood him] I stopped making public statements in the recent controversy because Eben Moglen started working behind the scenes to 'improve' what Linux people are doing wrong with licensing, and he asked me to give him pause, so his team could work. Honestly, I was greatly troubled by the situation, because even people like Alan Cox were giving other Linux developers advice to ... break the law. And furthermore, there are even greater potential risks for how the various communities interact. For the record -- I was right and the Linux developers cannot change the licenses in any of those ways proposed in those diffs, or that conversation (http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/8/28/157). It is illegal to modify a license unless you are the owner/author, because it is a legal document. If there are multiple owners/authors, they must all agree. A person who receives the file under two licenses can use the file in either way.... but if they distribute the file (modified or unmodified!), they must distribute it with the existing license intact, because the licenses we all use have statements which say that the license may not be removed.

Please see the Read More link for the entire message. It's worth your time.

Yes, we're starting at the beginning to get it in one shot, as written. So sue me.

List: openbsd-misc Subject: That whole "Linux stealing our code" thing From: Theo de Raadt Date: 2007-09-01 1:40:52 [bcc'd to Eben Moglen so that people don't flood him] I stopped making public statements in the recent controversy because Eben Moglen started working behind the scenes to 'improve' what Linux people are doing wrong with licensing, and he asked me to give him pause, so his team could work. Honestly, I was greatly troubled by the situation, because even people like Alan Cox were giving other Linux developers advice to ... break the law. And furthermore, there are even greater potential risks for how the various communities interact. For the record -- I was right and the Linux developers cannot change the licenses in any of those ways proposed in those diffs, or that conversation (http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/8/28/157). It is illegal to modify a license unless you are the owner/author, because it is a legal document. If there are multiple owners/authors, they must all agree. A person who receives the file under two licenses can use the file in either way.... but if they distribute the file (modified or unmodified!), they must distribute it with the existing license intact, because the licenses we all use have statements which say that the license may not be removed. It may seem that the licenses let one _distribute_ it under either license, but this interpretation of the license is false -- it is still illegal to break up, cut up, or modify someone else's legal document, and, it cannot be replaced by another license because it may not be removed. Hence, a dual licensed file always remains dual licensed, every time it is distributed. Now I've been nice enough to give Eben and his team a few days time to communicate inside the Linux community, to convince them that what they have proposed/discussed is wrong at a legal level. I think that Eben also agrees with me that there are grave concerns about how this leads to problems at the ethical and community levels (at some level, a ethos is needed for Linux developers to work with *BSD developers). And there are possibilities that similar issues could loom in the larger open source communities who are writing applications. Eben has thus far chosen not to make a public statement, but since time is running out on people's memory, I am making one. Also, I feel that a lot of Linux "relicencing" meme-talkin' trolls basically have attacked me very unfairly again, so I am not going to wait for Eben to say something public about this. In http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/8/29/183, Alan Cox managed to summarize what Jiri Slaby and Luis Rodriguez were trying to do by proposing a modification of a Dual Licenced file without the consent of all the authors. Alan asks "So whats the problem ?". Well, Alan, I must caution you -- your post is advising people to break the law. I will attempt to describe in simple terms, based on what I have been taught, how one must handle such licenses: - If you receive dual licensed code, you may not delete the license you don't like and then distribute it. It has to stay, because you may not edit someone's else's license -- which is a three-part legal document (For instance: Copyright notice, BSD, followed by GPL). - If you receive ISC or BSD licensed code, you may not delete the license. Same principle, since the notice says so. It's the law. Really. - If you add "large pieces of originality" to the code which are valid for copyright protection on their own, you may choose to put a different and seperate (must be non-conflicting...) license at the top of the file above the existing license. (Warning: things become less clear as to what the combination of licenses mean, though -- there are ethical traps, too). - If you wish for everyone to remain friends, you should give code back. That means (at some ethical or friendliness level) you probably do not want to put a GPL at the top of a BSD or ISC file, because you would be telling the people who wrote the BSD or ISC file: "Thanks for what you wrote, but this is a one-way street, you give us code, and we take it, we give you you nothing back. screw off." In either case, I think a valuable lessons has been taught us here in the BSD world -- there are many many GPL loving people who are going to try to find any way to not give back and share (I will mention one name: Luis Rodriguez has been a fanatic pushing us for dual licensed, and I feel he is to blame for this particular problem). Many of those same people have been saying for years that BSD code can be stolen, and that is why people should GPL their code. Well, the lesson they have really taught us is that they consider the GPL their best tool to take from us! GPL fans said the great problem we would face is that companies would take our BSD code, modify it, and not give back. Nope -- the great problem we face is that people would wrap the GPL around our code, and lock us out in the same way that these supposed companies would lock us out. Just like the Linux community, we have many companies giving us code back, all the time. But once the code is GPL'd, we cannot get it back. Ironic. I hope some people in the GPL community will give that some thought. Your license may benefit you, but you could lose friends you need. The GPL users have an opportunity to 'develop community', to keep an ethic of sharing alive. If the Linux developers wrap GPL's around things we worked very hard on, it will definately not be viewed as community development. Thank you for thinking about this. [I ask that one person make sure that one copy of this ends up on the linux kernel mailing list]