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Re: What is the licence of Debian-specific files (Was: Intent to package "vibrant" graphical library



On Tue, Feb 16, 1999 at 11:48:52AM +0100, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:
> On Tuesday 16 February 1999, at 9 h 2, the keyboard of Craig Sanders 
> <cas@taz.net.au> wrote:
> 
> > if it's public domain, remember to GPL your changes :-)
> 
> It meets a problem I have for a long time. I take a program. I add
> some Debian-specific files (programconfig, postinst, etc). What is
> the licence of these files? Can anyone take my work and close it, for
> instance?
>
> Note that I do not mention the patches I make to the original files. I
> refer only to the new files added. What is the licence of a Debian
> package, if the original (upstream) licence is Berkeley-style, for
> instance?

you can license your work (both patches and original extra files) under any
terms you choose, including the GPL.

because the original work is public domain, you can even re-license the
entire work under your own terms...e.g. the GPL.  

nothing would stop anyone else from treating the original as PD (because
it *is* PD), but your version (including all your enhancements) would be
GPL.  so nobody can steal your work into a proprietary program.



interestingly :-), similar re-licensing can be done with BSD licensed
software - the BSD license allows for the code to be swallowed up into a
product with another license...usually proprietary/closed-source, but i
don't think there's any reason why GPL should be excluded.

you can certainly release a BSD-licensed work with your patches and
license your changes under the GPL. this puts the entire derived work
under the terms of both the BSD license and the GPL. 


craig

--
craig sanders


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