linux-kernel - Re: Policy on dual licensing?

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Message-ID:  <slrnfip934.fao.lkml.only@localhost.localdomain>
Date:	Sat, 3 Nov 2007 16:36:04 +0000 (UTC)
From:	Remigiusz Modrzejewski <lkml.only@...net.org.pl>
To:	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject:  Re: Policy on dual licensing?

Krzysztof Halasa wrote:
> It doesn't make sense in general. Being derived from *BSD may mean
> only a tiny fragment comes from *BSD. I can't see any valid reason
> to force/ask the author to publish his/her code under BSD
> (GPL + BSD = BSD) instead of GPLv2 as used by the whole Linux.
>
> There are exceptions, of course - if you take a *BSD project and
> include it with no/minor changes it makes sense to use BSD licence,
> because we really want to cooperate, and because we don't have to
> fear "evil corporations" taking our code (because it's mostly not
> "ours").

Well, you've shown both poles, where the correct licensing decision 
seems quite obvious. But in between there lies the great gray area,
where it's not so clear. Lets say you take a BSD driver and perform
a medium sized hack, eg add a new feature and include it into Linux
kernel. Now you've got code that has been mainly of appropriate *BSD
authorship, but with a reason for them (and the "evil corporations")
to want the change ported back. The final choice *is* to be made by
the author, it's the right way to be. What I suggest is to encourage
authors to share back, best done by maintainer asking to do so just
before committing.

-- 
Remigiusz 'lRem' Modrzejewski
Contact: http://lrem.net/pages/view/about
Feel free to correct my English.

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