Re: BSD Licensing Compatibility

[Andrew Smallshaw <andrews%sdf.lonestar.org@localhost>]

On Mon, Dec 31, 2012 at 10:57:02AM +0100, Julian H. Stacey wrote:
> > Hey,
> > I am looking at creating a derived File system from currently available
> > open-sourced File-systems. My big question is license compatibility, as i
> > don't want to start the project only to find that the source i have used is
> > not under a compatible license with the other source/s.
> > 
> > The current sources i am looking at are licensed under the following:
> > BSD License
> > GNU GPL version 2
> > GNU GPL version 1
> > 
> > I understand you can license something under a multiple licenses, but i was
> > kinda hoping to eventually release it under one of the BSD licenses.
> 
> Read the licences :-)
> 
> If you start with BSD, you can later release under BSD, FSF or
> other, (cos BSD doesn't shackle you), whereas if you start with
> code restricted by FSF/GNU/GPL you'r doomed to stay constrained).

Careful: the four-cluase BSD license (the one with the advertising
clause) is actually incompatible with the GPL.  The incompatibility
is more with the GPL than the BSD license though, since the former
includes a clause that prohibits additional restrictions being put
on the code.  

Although Berkeley and TNF (and from memory the other principal BSD
derivatives) have dropped the offending clause from _their_ licenses
there is still a lot of third party code in many BSD-licensed
packages that still contains the problematic clause.

-- 
Andrew Smallshaw
andrews%sdf.lonestar.org@localhost