Re: please check new blitz license
On Wed, 12 Aug 1998, John Lapeyre wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Aug 1998, Shaleh wrote:
>
> shaleh>John, if a license does not give permission, it is assumed to deny
> shaleh>permission. So buy not allowing distribution if you charge and not
>
> Shaleh, I disagree. The BSD does not say anything positive about
> many paragraphs in the DFSG. For instance it is silent on discrimination
> against fields of endeavor. It says nothing about any exchange of money.
> Notably, it does not require source code to be distributed, or to be made
> available.
FUD.
The fundamental principle of copyright is simple. No copying is allowed
of copyrighted work. This is what shaleh refers to. The purpose of a
copyright license is to grant the permission to copy, distribute, or
modify (all of which are otherwise illegal) under certain conditions.
With a few limitations imposed by national and international laws, the
holder of the copyright (normally the author) can impose any conditions he
feels like, when allowing copying, distribution and modification.
The DFSG draws a line in the sand, saying 'these are the rights we allow
the author to keep for himself' and 'these are the rights we require the
author to grant us'.
The BSD license *does* grant permission to distribute source code. It
doesn't require, no. But it grants. (The GPL is more complex. It
*requires* that any distributor in turn makes source available).
>
> I think license issues are important. But taken together, the
> GPL, BSD, and Artistic, and the DFSG can appear vague or contradictory. I
> am not convinced that satisfactory answers can be found to many of these
> questions by refering to these texts.
>
> From the DFSG:
>
> 2.Source Code
>
> The program must include source code, and must allow distribution
> in source code as well as compiled form.
>
>
> What does this mean ? That the source code must be re-distributed
> if any part or binary is ? None of the licenses require distribution of
> source code. Some require that it be made available. Perhaps this means
> that the source code should be included in the Debian archives, but this
> is not clear. And the DFSG is commonly refered to as a document by which
> to judge licenses. If it is refering to what must go in the Debian
> archives, then this notion is erroneous. As I mentioned, BSD allows
> distribution of binaries with no mention of source code.
>
I do not find this unclear.
'The program must include source code' means that it must be possible to
obtain the source code. Debian will then distribute it.
'and must allow distribution in source code as well as compiled form.'
means that the license must allow us to distribute this source code.
Note that the license need not 'require' source code to be available. The
GPL does, the BSD doesn't. But the license must *allow* source code to
be available.
I still don't understand why you don't think the BSD doesn't mention
source code.
Here is the head of the BSD license, as present on my system on
/usr/doc/copyright/BSD :
-----
Copyright (c) The Regents of the University of California.
All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
are met:
----
Seems clear to me...
Does this clear everything up?
Jules
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