Subject: Re: copyright questions
To: Jim Wise <jimw@numenor.turner.com>
From: Chris G. Demetriou <cgd@pa.dec.com>
List: current-users
Date: 06/13/1997 16:56:38
> No one is forcing you to contribute code.
That is true.
> We all appreciate the great
> amount of excellent work you have done for the Project,
Thank you!
> but if the only
> way we can continue to benefit from your work is to sacrifice the
> Project's ideals, I, for one, say no thank you.
Yes, but you are not a person in the position to make that decision
_for the project_.
> I am also curious to
> hear from more of core on this -- it surprises me greatly that this
> license was accepted into the source tree without being submitted to
> general discussion. (How does this affect DEC's plans to use NetBSD,
> for example?)
It's probably irrelevant to DEC's plans re: use of NetBSD (though I am
not speaking for DEC in this regard, nor can I), just as it is
probably irrelevant to any company's plans re: NetBSD.
DEC, and any other company with "deep pockets," _HAS_ to comply with
all of the license terms of every single NetBSD file they ship. Given
the current diversity of licenses, that causes a lot of hassles, and
indeed caused a bunch of jaws to drop when I mentioned the magnitude
of the problem to people here. That's increased, but only marginally,
by my license. In fact, in some ways, my license makes things
_easier_, because organizations know they always have to give credit,
unless I write a waiver, rather than having to guess on the grey
areas.
As previously noted (and as should be obvious), code that I write for
DEC is owned by them, and how they license it is up to them.
chris