Re: Copyright lawyers analysis of Andreas Pour's Interpretation
On Feb 10, Don Sanders wrote:
> Secondly I showed him Andreas Pour's XFree license comment, which contains a
> copy of the Xfree license:
> http://lists.kde.org/?/=kde-licensing&m=94950776505271&w=2
>
> * He agreed that software licensees have no inherent right to relicense
> software under a more restrictive license.
>
> * He agreed that one could not relicense software under the XFree license+++
> under the GPL, as the XFree license prohibits this.
[...]
> +++ The XFree license allows sublicensing under certain conditions.
I don't think you would have any right to relicense software you
didn't write. I think the issue is whether or not a derived work
incorporating part of the XFree86-licensed code can be licensed under
the GPL (or any other license that doesn't contradict the terms of the
XFree86 license), and I don't see anyone here arguing that it can't.
(Having said that, Debian's XFree86 implementation includes code under
6 separate licenses, 3 of which are identical in their substance,
varying only in who they indemnify; 5 of these licenses are
propogated from upstream.)
If this were not the case, then Sun, HP, et al. could not bundle a
proprietary X implementation (including closed-source X servers) with
their operating systems.
Chris
--
=============================================================================
| Chris Lawrence | You have a computer. Do you have Linux? |
| <quango@watervalley.net> | http://www.linux-m68k.org/index.html |
| | |
| Debian Developer | Visit the Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5: |
| http://www.debian.org/ | <*> http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/ <*> |
=============================================================================
Reply to: