17 Oct
2024
17 Oct
'24
5:34 a.m.
Warner Losh to Anton Shepelev:
Complicated indeed, and to a degree I should not have
expected.
So it was not an arbitrary decision by Caldera to use the
original BSD license? Can they have used the modern three-
clause version with equal ease?
In 2002,
Caldera released Ancient Unix code under
Caldera license:
<https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Caldera-license.pdf>
based on the four-clause BSD license:
<https://spdx.org/licenses/BSD-4-Clause.html>
[...]
Unfortunately, the 4-clause BSD license is incompatible
with GPL:
<https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#OriginalBSD>
The incompatibilty is due entirely to the infamous third
clause about adverising. Three years prior to Caldera's
release of old Unix code, The Berkley Univercity removed
this clause, producing the GNU-compatible modified BSD
License:
[...]
That said, is there a chance that the copyright holder
of Ancient Will agree to release a similar note
regarding everything released under Caldera license?
That's a complicated question.
[...snipped.but.read...] Finding the right people inside the current company
to
talk to is hard. It's not their promary business. It's not
clear how many rights they have. It's hard to show how it
could benefit them.
No worldly benefit; the bare goodwill is all I can hope for.
So I'm doubtful. Your best bet is to not make
your changes
available under the GPL.
The four-clause BSD license excludes not only GPL itself,
but (I think) the many GPL-compatible licenses. The
simplest thing for me to do is probably to keep the BSD-like
Caldera license. Thanks for the feedback, Warner!