Re: Change from BSDL to GPL?

[Iain Hibbert <plunky%rya-online.net@localhost>]

On Mon, 5 May 2008, hlwhyw%shtel.net.cn@localhost wrote:

> I know that 4.4BSD-Lite is BSD Licenced. Is it
> legal to port BSD Licenced code and change it to
> GPL licence?

Leaving aside the legalities, please think about what would happen if you
actually did that. You would take some code and modify it and release it
in such a way that the original owners of the code will be unable to use
your modifications. How does that fit with the spirit of the GNU/GPL which
requires that people not do that?

I suggest that if you want to use some BSD licenced code in your project,
that the most honourable thing to do would be to just use it and don't
change the licence at all. If you make improvements or modifications then
leave them with the same licence as the original code and even offer them
back to the original project if it still exists.

The BSD licence and GNU/GPL will sit side by side in your project just
fine.

regards,
iain

PS I'm sure that the 4.4BSD-Lite TCP/IP stack is great but it has had many
years of improvements and bug-fixes in several directions (NetBSD,
OpenBSD, FreeBSD ...) and you might be better basing your work on a more
modern version.