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RE: Is it _really_ dead?



On Tue, 17 Oct 2000, Brent Fulgham wrote:

> I guess the unspoken issue that's caused confusion for me in this
> thread is that Debian is as much about philosophy as it is about
> software, or operating systems.  One sticking point is likely to
> be licensing issues.  The GNU/Hurd and GNU/Linux are based (obviously)
> on a Stallmanesque GPL-centric ideal, where we know what we produce
> cannot be extended and resold under a restrictive license.  This
> is one area that we differ from BSD, in that BSD allows the licensing
> of the software to be changed.  I worry that a Debian/BSD might
> not meet with much enthusiasm as a Debian Project.

How does a BSD-type license allow licensing of the software to be changed?

Yes, someone can take a BSD-licensed code and change it and sell the
binaries without supplying the source and changes. But binary or source
distributions must include the BSD license.
http://www.debian.org/misc/bsd.license

Why does it matter? If someone takes the new BSD-licensed code used in a
DebianBSD and extends it and sells it, who cares? Anyways, Debian and
FreeBSD are already made up of a bunch of tools that have a variety of
licenses.

  Jeremy C. Reed
  http://www.reedmedia.net/
  http://bsd.reedmedia.net/



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