Re: BSD Protection License
At 21:33 22/10/2003 -0500, Adam Majer wrote:
I have asked on Debian-legal whether the "BSD Protection License" can
be considered free, and this is the reply I got:
> It does not appear possible to
> meet 3c and 4c simultaneously and there is no real indication that you
> mustn't meet both. Therefore, I suggest that the licence is not free.
People read licenses in strange ways. Nobody seems concerned by the
fact that paragraphs 2 and 3 cannot be satisfied simultaneously, yet lots
of people complain that paragraphs 3 and 4 cannot be satisfied simultaneously.
I think your license needs to clearly state that it must meet
either 3 OR 4.
I don't think that's necessary. Licenses are interpreted by "reasonable
men"; there's only one reading of the license which makes any sense at all;
I think we can trust "reasonable men" to assume that I wasn't smoking crack
when I wrote the license.
At one point, I considered adding a clause 4.5, "You may modify and
distribute ... the following conditions: a) You must be alive, b) You must
be dead", but I decided that would be a bit overly frivolous.
I think point 3.c in your license is flawed since it prevent people to
download a given package from anywhere but the original author. eg. simtel.com
could be distribute it..
Huh?
> Finally, can you call something "BSD" if you aren't descended from UCB?
Can you?
Why not? Are you suggesting that UCB might launch a trademark suit over
three letters? I think I'll accept that risk.
Could you just use a regular BSD license?
I can't do that right now. I might be able to do that at some later date.
Colin Percival
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