David H. Lynch Jr. wrote:
[..]
> The law requires complying with the license not preserving it.
And the license request you to preserve the license, thus if you do not
preserve the license you are not complying with it.
> The ISC License requires little more than preserving the copyright
> notice, not the license itself,
Sorry, but it really can't be stated clearer than:
8<-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any
purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.
----------------------------------------------------------------------->8
Which is what the ISC license contains, again, you need to preserve it
to comply to the license.
> BSD Licensed code has found its way into proprietary products, with
> no availability of source - and no preservation
> of license.
That code (most likely) still contains the license. A lot of times you
will find it reproduced even in documentation, or in an acknowledgment.
> The claim of the Free Software people has always been that BSD is a
> "License to Steal"
It is a license to use, but as long as you credit the original author.
[..]
> BUT I am having a hard time convincing myself that taking BSD/ISC
> Licensed code - and relicensing it while preservng the
> copyright notice, violates the BSD/ISC License.
Which part of:
8<------------------
* Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
------------------>8
is unclear that that part needs to be kept intact?
That part is more or less exactly the same as the ISC license btw.
Also, if what you say above would be true, then a lot of people will be
having a lot of fun with a lot of copyrighted works.
"Oh look a copyright, lets strip the license, the copyright is still
there, so now smack our own license on it" as that is what you state
above. Suddenly all GPL software would become commercially available ;)
> BSD advocates claim their license is more free because it allows you
> to do most anything with BSD code.
> Am I missing the part where that freedom includes removing the
> license ?
Maybe because Code != License?
> How is what Linux developers seem to be doing less legal or ethical
> that what many commercial developers have already done ?
Because the commercial developers don't claim it as their own.
Try doing a grep for "BSD" on those binaries and you will find out that
most likely the license is still intact.
> If this is not one of the freedom's of BSD Licensed code, then
> craft your license to prohibit it.
The license does prohibit that. Weird that you missed out that part, it
is not like the GPL license which is several pages long of legal nonsense.
Some people like to code and provide that code to others so that those
people can use it, without running the risk of getting sued when
somebody peeps up using their code. They use BSD/ISC licenses. Some
other people like to code something and let everybody use it and then
let people pay for what they've done in returns for "support costs"
these people use GPL viral licenses.
Greets,
Jeroen
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