GPL-Incompatible Free Software License ?

[Marco Oliva]

In tar-1.20/rmt/rmt.c is written:

"
/* Remote connection server.

   Copyright (C) 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004,
   2005, 2006, 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

   This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
   under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
   Free Software Foundation; either version 3, or (at your option) any later
   version.

   This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
   WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
   MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General
   Public License for more details.

   You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
   with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
   51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.  */

/* Copyright (C) 1983 Regents of the University of California.
   All rights reserved.

   Redistribution and use in source and binary forms are permitted provided
   that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are duplicated in all
   such forms and that any documentation, advertising materials, and other
   materials related to such distribution and use acknowledge that the
   software was developed by the University of California, Berkeley.  The
   name of the University may not be used to endorse or promote products
   derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
   THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
   WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
   MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  */
"

The problem, in my opinion, is:
"
... and use acknowledge that the
   software was developed by the University of California, Berkeley. ...
"
It is very similar to Original BSD License.

Can be considered GPL-Incompatible Free Software License ?


P.S.: Tar version 1.22 has the same file.

[Karl Berry]

Hi Marco, Sergey,

    ... and use acknowledge that the
       software was developed by the University of California, Berkeley. ...
    "
    It is very similar to Original BSD License.

In fact, it is exactly the original BSD license, as far as I can see,
this code having been originally written at UCB.

You're right that this is a problem, on the face of it.  But since
Berkeley later rescinded that clause for all their software, it's not a
real problem, and we can just change the license to modified BSD.  The
FSF lawyers advised us that this was fine to do.  This same issue came
up with GNU indent semi-recently.

Sergey, can you make that change?

(Alternatively, probably the rmt.c in FreeBSD or some other BSD could be
used, but that would presumably be some work to merge.)

Thanks,
Karl


* Copyright (c) 1983 Regents of the University of California.
*
* 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 in the
*    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
* - 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
*    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
*    without specific prior written permission.
*
* THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS S IS'' AND
* ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
* IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
* ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
* FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
* DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
* OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
* HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
* LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
* OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
* SUCH DAMAGE.

[Sergey Poznyakoff-2]

Hi Karl, Marco,

> Sergey, can you make that change?
>
> (Alternatively, probably the rmt.c in FreeBSD or some other BSD could be
> used, but that would presumably be some work to merge.)

I have rewritten rmt from scratch. None of the old BSD code was used,
so the license is now clean GPLv3+.

Regards,
Sergey