Re: Berkeley DB curious licensing practice
Scripsit Bennett Todd <bet@rahul.net>
> 2002-10-31-13:53:24 Sean 'Shaleh' Perry:
> > right. Now, the GPL *only* applies to the recipient of a binary.
> > If that binary never leaves my company no one outside my company
> > has the right to the source code.
> But, if I'm obliged to distribute my in-house app in-house with an
> open source license slathered over it, anyone who does receive it
> (in-house) is completely legally free to post it to the world.
Nothing in the Sleepycat license prevents you from declaring that the
modified program is a trade secret and forbid your employees from
removing it from the premises. That would be harder with GPL because
of #6 (but it is in itself doubtful whether #6 applies to employees
working under instruction). However Sleepycat does not say that you
have to use GPL, so that point is moot.
> If Berkeley DB came under an open source license,
Which it does it does.
> I'd be free to build things that use it under absolutely any license
> I like,
You're confusing "open source" with "public domain".
> So I could build something that used Berkeley DB, my something could
> be strictly internal-use-only company proprietary,
Which it can.
> Berkeley DB's redefinition of "redistribute" to include copying
> within an organization has made their license no longer
> satisfactorily "Open Source" for my tastes;
Your tastes are strange, then.
> But if the Open Source Definition accepts SleepyCat's new game,
There is nothing new. It's the same thing that the GPL has been
playing for ages, except that Sleepycat expresses it briefer and
possibly with more loopholes in it.
> I suppose I need to find a new word for what I mean.
Try "public domain" or something like that.
--
Henning Makholm "og de står om nissen Teddy Ring."
Reply to: