[erlang-questions] GNU GPL, MIT, BSD and compatibility

[David Hopwood]

Matthew Dempsky wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 11, 2008 at 6:52 AM, David-Sarah Hopwood
> <david.hopwood@REDACTED> wrote:
>>  "A" is correct. But the GPL is a red herring here. I can take any
>>  MIT-licensed code and redistribute it with the additional license term
>>  "to use this code, you must give me your first-born child", for example [*]
>>  (enforcability aside). This is not a problem, primarily because someone
>>  can still use the code distributed under the original license, and not
>>  give me their first-born child. The fact that the original copyright
>>  holder(s) chose an MIT or BSD-like license entails that they accepted
>>  the possibility of redistribution under any more restrictive license.
> 
> The BSD license only grants use, redistribution, and modification.
> The recipient of BSD licensed code is granted those rights by the
> copyright owner, not by the distributor.
 >
 > The MIT license also grants sublicensing (among some other rights),
 > but otherwise the same idea applies.

The above paragraph was written in the context of distributing a
derived work; "I" in that case refers to a (non-exclusive) copyright
holder. But this is not on-topic for the Erlang list, I think.

-- 
David Hopwood