I'm in the process of adding some BSD code to the xosview
source tree (in preparation for the next release!), and could use
a little clarification on the copyright issues of mixing BSD and
GPL.  (Throughout this 'post,' GPL stands for the much-maligned
General Public License, aka GNU Public License aka GNU GPL.)

  First of all, the "evil" thing about GPL is that anything that
uses _any_ GPL stuff (except libraries or whatever) must be
_entirely_ placed under the GPL, right?  (From clause 2b of the
GPL.) And thus the reason we (that's the collective NetBSD-we)
don't want any GPL'd code in the kernel source (because it
would then "contaminate" all the other code), right?  Or am I
missing the point?

  Second, is there anything wrong with using BSD-copyrighted
stuff in a GPL program?  To my eyes, the BSD copyright doesn't
prevent code covered by it from being in projects, including
GPL-covered ones, provided the copyright notice is left intact
in the relevant files, and any advertising materials contain
the proper attributions.  However, my eyes are not legal-eagle
eyes, and I know a bunch of people on this list have a lot more
familiarity with copyright issues than I.  Only the
swap-space-measuring code is BSD stuff, all the rest of the
NetBSD-port code is custom code by me.

  Third, is there any reason why I would not want to place my
own original code under a pick-and-choose copyright (BSD _or_
GPL, at the user's discretion)?  That's what I was planning on
doing, to make other people's lives just a bit easier...

  Thanks for any info!

  Brian
-- 
Brian Grayson (bgrayson@ece.utexas.edu)
Graduate Student, Electrical and Computer Engineering
The University of Texas at Austin
Office:  ENS 406       (512) 471-8011
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