Re: BSD Licensed files in Linux kernel.

From: Mike A. Harris (mharris@meteng.on.ca)
Date: Tue Mar 07 2000 - 17:16:21 EST

On Tue, 7 Mar 2000, Ben Collins wrote:

>Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2000 11:46:52 -0500
>From: Ben Collins <bcollins@debian.org>
>To: Darren Reed <avalon@coombs.anu.edu.au>
>Cc: Andi Kleen <ak@suse.de>, linux-kernel@vger.rutgers.edu
>Subject: Re: BSD Licensed files in Linux kernel.
>
>> > The file in question is copyright UCB.
>> > UCB has recently dropped the problematical clause (3) of the license,
>> > and the BSD license without that does not conflict with the GPL. UCB
>> > as the copyright holder can drop that. They did. So there is no problem.
>>
>> What about the view that the GPL prohibits sub-licensing (such as what
>> the UCB file has) ?
>>
>> What about the view that the UCB copyright places restrictions (albeit
>> very light) which are not present in the GPL ? Specifically this:
>>
>> * 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.
>>
>> Wouldn't this fly in the face of section 6 of the GPL ?
>
>You are assuming that the "kernel" is one big piece of software under one
>big license. There are a lot of components, and each can have it's own
>license. This has nothing to do with relicensing, since that is the original
>license for that component.

No, the kernel, as distributed in source form is a single entity,
which is under the GPL license. The components _in_ the kernel
may be under multiple licenses individually, one of which is
either GPL, or GPL compatible, or it would not be a part of the
kernel because it would violate GPL. 

-- 
Mike A. Harris                                     Linux advocate     
Computer Consultant                                  GNU advocate  
Capslock Consulting                          Open Source advocate

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