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Re: Non-copyleft free software licenses...



Sunnanvind Fenderson <sunnanvind@fenderson.com> writes:

> Does the modified BSD-license allow you to release forks under any
> license, for example a proprietary one?

Yes.

> Now, Microsoft Windows 95 is a well-known, proprietary system which
> uses code from BSD. Thus, it includes the BSD copyright notice/license
> in the distribution (the version I verifyed this with had it in
> "ftp.exe"). Now, if anyone tries to distribute Microsoft Windows 95,
> or parts of it, under the same terms as free BSDs, they'll get
> harassed by Microsoft Corporation. Which is weird, since it says
> (again, in "ftp.exe") "Redistribution and use in source and binary
> forms, with or without modification, are permitted".

Um, but that legend applies only to the BSD portions.  It doesn't
affect (for example) whatever modifications may have been made in
creating a derived work.

> What gives? Oh, and in one of RMS's speeches (which I love, glad it's
> available in ogg format), he implies that the GNU project could've
> made a copylefted fork of X windows, but chose not to.

Sure.



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