OT - Closing Off An Open-Source Product

[phil hunt]

On Thu, 12 Apr 2001 15:55:08 -0500 (CDT), Chris Watson <chris at voodooland.net> wrote:
>
>That is taken out of context. The full license looks as such:
>
># Copyright 2001 Chris Watson (scanner at jurai.net).  All rights reserved.
>#
># 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.
>#  3. The license on this code can not be changed or altered in any way.
>#     No additional terms, conditions, or restrictions may be placed on
>#     this code.
>
>This pretty much ensures the code can be used in source form OR binary
>form, and that you CANNOT add any additional items, conditions, terms,
>restrictions, etc.. By doing so you would violate my license. This
>guarantees people cant corrupt my code with the GPL. Remove clause 3 and
>they can. Because clause 1 and 2 do *not* prohibit the code from being
>GPL'ed.

I'm not sure I fully understand the implications of this license.
Let's consider two scenarios.


SCENARIO 1

Say you write a program, P, and release it with this license. I
now make use of some of that program, say a complex-number
library, (call this PP for "part of P") and add my own code, Q,
such that PP+Q forms a more comprehensive complex number library.
I release Q under the GPL. It so happens that Q without PP doesn't
do anything useful.

Is this intended to be illegal under your license? (I don't
think it is in fsact an ingringement). Assuming it isn't, then:

(1) if a 3rd person wants to use PP+Q, they must license the result
under the GPL

(2) if a 3rd person wants to use P as part of a proprietary program,
they can do so

so how does your license in this case differ from the ordinary BSDL?


SCENARIO 2

Again, you write P and release it under this license. Someone
takes a source file that is part of P (call it FP), and adds new
code to this file. Must the additional code be licensed under
this license?

WI somone creates a new file, which includes part of P's code, and
some new code; must that be licensed under this license?

If the answer to both these questions is yes, I think your license
is essentially the same as the MPL.


-- 
*****[ Phil Hunt ***** philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk ]*****
"Mommy, make the nasty penguin go away." -- Jim Allchin, MS head 
of OS development, regarding open source software (paraphrased).