bsd & modified bsd clarification

[Penny Leach-4]

[ please cc me, I'm not subscribed ]

Hi Debian-legal,

I'm packaging Dwoo [0] for Debian, which uses a Modified BSD
license.  Since there are a few files inside Dwoo that use a different
license, I thought I'd use the new debian/copyright format [1].  

So far so good.  Except I've come into a bit of trouble with what to use
for the Modified BSD.  Debian's license information [2] states that
"Modified BSD" is a "common" license, meaning that it is to be found inside
/usr/share/common-licenses.  However, if one follows the link on that page
to the text of the modified BSD license [3], and then diffs that with
/usr/share/common-licenses/BSD (which is the only BSD-ish license in
there), it's not the same.

Furthermore, the new debian/copyright policy [1] doesn't mention Modified
BSD at all - it just references BSD, NetBSD and FreeBSD.

Which brings me to the quandary of what to put inside debian/copyright.  I
guess I can put "Modified BSD" and include the license verbatim, as Dwoo
ships it in LICENSE, except that now of course I'm curious ;)

Cheers,
Penny


0: http://dwoo.org
1: http://dep.debian.net/deps/dep5/
2: http://www.debian.org/legal/licenses/
3: http://www.debian.org/misc/bsd.license



--
/* ---------------------------------------------------
Penny Leach | http://mjollnir.org | http://she.geek.nz
GPG: 8347 00FC B5BF 6CC0 0FC9 AB90 1875 120A A30E C22B
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[Don Armstrong]

On Thu, 05 Nov 2009, Penny Leach wrote:
> So far so good. Except I've come into a bit of trouble with what to
> use for the Modified BSD. Debian's license information [2] states
> that "Modified BSD" is a "common" license, meaning that it is to be
> found inside /usr/share/common-licenses.

It actually isn't in common-licenses, because
/usr/share/common-licenses/BSD is specific to the Regents of the
University of California. [It is a commonly used license, but every
time someone besides the UC Regents uses it, they modify the original
clause three (which was deleted by the UC Regents), or clause four, so
no one else can reference common-licenses.]

> Which brings me to the quandary of what to put inside
> debian/copyright. I guess I can put "Modified BSD" and include the
> license verbatim, as Dwoo ships it in LICENSE, except that now of
> course I'm curious ;)

Right, that's exactly what you should do.


Don Armstrong

--
The smallest quantity of bread that can be sliced and toasted has yet
to be experimentally determined. In the quantum limit we must
necessarily encounter fundamental toast particles which the author
will unflinchingly designate here as "croutons".
 -- Cser, Jim. Nanotechnology and the Physical Limits of Toastability.
    AIR 1:3, June, 1995.

http://www.donarmstrong.com              http://rzlab.ucr.edu


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[Charles Plessy-12]

Le Thu, Nov 05, 2009 at 04:00:45PM +0100, Penny Leach a écrit :
>
> Furthermore, the new debian/copyright policy [1] doesn't mention Modified
> BSD at all - it just references BSD, NetBSD and FreeBSD.

Dear Penny,

first of all let me just clarify that DEP-5 is only a proposal now, and that it
can be subjected to many changes before it is accepted.

One of the changes that I would like to propose when I have enough time to
draft a patch, is to introduce a syntax for licenses ‘similar to’ other
licenses, when they were derived from a very common license by only changing
some people, company or brand names.

As Don explained, there is only one BSD license, the one where the regents of
the university of California are coyright holders. And since they used their
copy rights to change the license in the past, there is no program that is
licensed under the ‘old BSD’ license. Nevertheless, there are some that have
license similar to it, and were not affected by the removal of the
advertisement clause because the copyright holder is not the same.

Whichever solution is adopted in DEP-5 to underline that license A is derived
from license B, unless your program is part of the BSD distribution and is
copyright by the regents of the university of California, you can not use
the copy in /usr/share/common-license and have to include it verbatim. Luckily,
it is short :)

Have a nice day,

--
Charles Plessy
Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan


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[Penny Leach-4]

Hi Don & Charles,

On Fri, Nov 06, 2009 at 09:32:39AM +0900, Charles Plessy wrote:
> first of all let me just clarify that DEP-5 is only a proposal now, and that it
> can be subjected to many changes before it is accepted.

Ah - in that case, would you recommend using this format now, accepting
that I may have to change it later, or hold off and not use it at all until
it's more stable?

In a package where the copyright and license was clearer (assuming such a
mythical thing exists), I might not have considered using it, but in Dwoo
there's at least modified BSD and LGPL (actually I didn't consider whether
mixing these was a problem, I hope it's not!), and different
authors/copyright holders of different plugins, so it seemed to make sense.

> Whichever solution is adopted in DEP-5 to underline that license A is derived
> from license B, unless your program is part of the BSD distribution and is
> copyright by the regents of the university of California, you can not use
> the copy in /usr/share/common-license and have to include it verbatim. Luckily,
> it is short :)

Yep, I already did that, no problems there.

I wonder if http://www.debian.org/legal/licenses/ might be more clearer
about this.  I would submit a patch, but as has been made clear, I am no
license expert ;)

Thank you both for your replies.

Cheers,
Penny

--
/* ---------------------------------------------------
Penny Leach | http://mjollnir.org | http://she.geek.nz
GPG: 8347 00FC B5BF 6CC0 0FC9 AB90 1875 120A A30E C22B
--------------------------------------------------- */

[Charles Plessy-12]

Le Fri, Nov 06, 2009 at 07:52:26AM +0100, Penny Leach a écrit :
>
> On Fri, Nov 06, 2009 at 09:32:39AM +0900, Charles Plessy wrote:
> > first of all let me just clarify that DEP-5 is only a proposal now, and that it
> > can be subjected to many changes before it is accepted.
>
> Ah - in that case, would you recommend using this format now, accepting
> that I may have to change it later, or hold off and not use it at all until
> it's more stable?

Experimentation and feedback is definitely welcome !

Have a nice week-end,

--
Charles Plessy
Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan


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