[jdev] Jabberd 1.4.x license concerns/questions

[Tijl Houtbeckers]

On Sat, 02 Apr 2005 00:28:19 +0200, Jamin W.Collins  
<jcollins at asgardsrealm.net> wrote:

> On Apr 1, 2005, at 12:41 PM, Tijl Houtbeckers wrote:
>>
>> in response to Jonathan, this is one of the reasons there is a "new"  
>> BSD license. The old one was not compatible with the GPL. The GPL *IS*  
>> written to deny people credit for their work. By that I mean, it is  
>> written specially so that I can take your GPL work, and use it, without  
>> ever having to credit you. Of course I'm allowed to credit you if I  
>> want, but the "freedom" concept behind the GPL is that the code is not  
>> "free" (and thus not GPL compatible) if you can REQUIRE that I must  
>> credit you. Which is exactly what the OpenSLL and "old" BSD license  
>> does. (Note that if I distribute  GPL derived software I must also make  
>> the source available, which MUST include your copyright notice, and I  
>> MUST document the changes I made; in other words, what's yours and  
>> what's mine).
>
> I'm not sure I follow you here.  I'm not aware of anything in the GPL  
> that allows someone to not credit the original authors.

It comes down to this. You can't link your GPL code with OpenSSL, because  
it mandates that you advertise your use of it if you want to distrubite  
your application. The GPL explicitly forbids such additional requirments.

Ofcourse you can credit people in your app. With the GPL, they just can't  
try and force you to.

>
> 1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source  
> code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously  
> and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice  
> and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to  
> this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other  
> recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program.
>
> I think the key portion here is "an appropriate copyright notice".   
> Regardless of the GPL or MIT/BSD license I'm pretty sure it's illegal  
> for someone to take a work originally authored (and thus copyrighted) by  
> someone else and remove that copyright.  Since the copyright /must/  
> remain, credit is given.  Section 3 of the license attempts to ensure  
> the availability of the software source, thus the copyright statements  
> are viewable.

Yes. Of course you can leave the copyright notice on the top. In fact, you  
must.

But that's not enough to statisfy the OpenSSL license requirments.
I'll quote them again with my own emphasis added:

The OpenSSL license states:

    * 3. -->All advertising materials<-- mentioning features or use of this
    *    software must display the following acknowledgment:
    *    "This product includes software developed by the OpenSSL Project
    *    for use in the OpenSSL Toolkit. (http://www.openssl.org/)"

...

    * 6. Redistributions of -->any form whatsoever<-- must retain the  
following
    *    acknowledgment:
    *    "This product includes software developed by the OpenSSL Project
    *    for use in the OpenSSL Toolkit (http://www.openssl.org/)"

They're clearly not talking about a copyright notice on top of a source  
file here. If you mention it in an advertisement you have to credit them,  
if you distribute a binary (in the case of GPL you are NOT required to  
include the source) you must credit them. etc.