On Tue, 2003-08-05 at 12:55, Joe Moore wrote: > > You can extract the BSD-licensed code from the proprietary code, and > > use only it. There's no requirement in the BSD-licensed code that you > > must distribute proprietary code that it was linked to at one point. > > And that is exactly the same as what is required by the GFDL. > > If you know that paragraph X was in the FooWare manual before EvilCo added > its invariant section, then you can distribute paragraph X without EvilCo's > invariant section. This is a violation of the license. You received the version of the document with the invariant section; that's the *only* version you have a license too. I would hope that Debian does not endorse copyright violation as a means to get around the GFDL's shortcomings. > Similarly, with BSD'd source: > If you know that function X was in the FooWare product before EvilCo added > its proprietary GUI, then you can distribute function X without EvilCo's > permission. (assuming you fulfull the rest of the requirements of the BSD > license, i.e. preserve copyright notices) The easiest way to be sure that > this is the case is to find a copy of the FooWare product without EvilCo's > proprietary GUI. Or you can review the changelog and back out all changes > from EvilCo.[0] You received two licenses with FooWare, EvilCo's proprietary one, and the BSD one. Unless EvilCo's proprietary license forbids you from extracting the BSD code (in which case I would question its validity), you are free to extract the BSD one, which is under an entirely separate copyright license. > > No other free license requires you keep the previously free > > source forever proprietary-linked, once it has become such. > > The GFDL does not require "you keep the previously free source forever > proprietary-linked, once it has become such." You can continue to develop > and maintain a free version from the last non-proprietary version. If you can find it. > If you can't "retroactively" fork from a previous (assumed free) version, > then the license in question fails the "Tentacles of Evil" test. The GFDL > (as I understand the license and the test) passes the "Tentacles of Evil" > test. You can, if you can find it. The trouble may be finding it. (NB - I'm not discussing any of the other problems in the GFDL, not because I don't believe they're problems, but because they've been discussed already. I don't want people to get the opinion that the only thing in the GFDL I'm objecting to is invariant sections. There's a lot more, but invariant sections are the most odious to me.) -- Joe Wreschnig <piman@debian.org>
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