> If you place no legal bindings whatsoever on NetBSD/MacBSD, not even any
> sort of a copyright, then it would be perfectly legal for somebody to
> come along and make a few minor changes to the code, and place *his*
> copyright on the whole thing, and make it *illegal* for you to
> distribute NetBSD/MacBSD from then on.

Nobody said _anything_ about putting _NO_ legal bindings on the code;
In fact, i pointed out that that was simply impractical.

The berkeley license reads as follows:

 * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
 * modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
 * are met:
 * 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
 *    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
 * 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
 *    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
 *    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
 * 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
 *    must display the following acknowledgement:
 *      This product includes software developed by the University of
 *      California, Berkeley and its contributors.
 * 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
 *    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
 *    without specific prior written permission.
 *
 * THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
 * ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
 * IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
 * ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
 * FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
 * DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
 * OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
 * HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
 * LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
 * OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
 * SUCH DAMAGE.

Note that it allows any use -- even commercial sale of binaries and
non-distribution of the source -- but it requires that the copyright
and those license terms be retained and followed.

We encourage that similar copyrights be placed on the NetBSD sources
by their authors.


If you place a piece of software into the public domain, then yes,
others can grab it and slap their own copyright on it.  However, it's
unclear (to me; perhaps not in a court of law) what would happen if
they tried to sue you for illegal use of the software.  I would assume
that the legal system does the right thing, but then, i don't put my
software into the public domain.  8-)



chris

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