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Subject: Re: [2.6] The List, pass #2
From: Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
To: trond.myklebust@fys.uio.no
Cc: Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org>, Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>,
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On Wed, 2002-07-31 at 21:34, Trond Myklebust wrote:
> Care to comment on why it is not GPL compatible? Given that they are
> interested in merging their code into the standard kernel ASAP, I know
> that they'd be interested in correcting any incompatibilities.

The 3 clause BSD though very much a completely free/open license has
requirements conflicting with the GPL 

http://www.fsf.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLIncompatibleLicenses
http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/bsd.html

An additional problem with a BSD like license is that it makes no
statement on patents - regrettably a critical issue now days in the
USSA. That means nothing prevents CITI from providing BSD licensed code
and then 6 months later sueing everyone who used it. I don't see CITI
doing that but the basic problem is still there.

If it is all their own code, and they want to have a BSD licensed copy
for other reasons - eg to merge the same code into BSD, sell it to
proprietary vendors or whatever, then it would be immensely saner if
they would submit a copy for the Linux kernel under the GPL and keep it
dual licensed. As the owner of a work they can license it many many ways
all at the same time.

The random driver has a nice example of this.

Alan

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