Re: KDE not in Debian?

[Andreas Pour <pour@mieterra.com>]

Marcus Brinkmann wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 28, 2000 at 07:48:40AM -0500, Andreas Pour wrote:
> > Hmm.  I don't know, the BSD license says you can modify the source code, it does
> > not permit you to modify the license.  The copyright holder still holds the
> > copyright to every copy of the work that is created.  And this owner has indicated
> > that the copy comes under the BSD license.  The fact that you, and not he, makes
> > the copy, does not change the license he gives to the copies.  I mean, maybe you
> > would have an argument that, the one copy that he gave you, that you can change
> > the license on that.  But how can you change the license on a copy someone else
> > makes?  I mean, if code B is BSD, and you add code G which is GPL to it, and then
> > you distribute B+G to me, when I make a copy of B+G, how can you say your license
> > applies to the B part, when the copyright holder of B says a different license
> > applies to it?
>
> One work can be licensed under several different licenses at the same time
> to different people (or even to the same people). For example, perl
> is licensed under the Artistic license and the GPL.

Right, but only if the original author so licenses it.  In our hypothetical BSD case,
he has not; in the Perl case, I don't think they have either (see
http://www.perl.com/pub/language/info/software.html#srclic), but I could be wrong.
It's certainly possible, as Troll Tech has done it with Qt and lots of companies do it
with proprietary code (e.g., individual licenses vs. site licenses vs. source code
licenses).

Ciao,

Andreas