Re: [DoomBSP] License

[Colin P. <cp...@do...>]

On Wed, Sep 20, 2000 at 05:06:44PM +0000, Andre Majorel wrote:
> Colin, could you try to clarify a bit BSP's license and your
> intentions regarding it ? The web page says it's BSD, COPYING
> says something else.  It would be nice to be more precise,
> especially since BSP is included is other software.

The only requirements that the BSP source makes is that the authors 
continue to receive credit. The Sourceforge page says it's BSD because that 
was the closest license its list. I *am* thinking of putting in a normal 
BSD license for the next version though, since the wording is clearer and 
the disclaimer is needed.

> My personal preference goes to the GPL, of course. If you ask
> me, I'd hate to see BSP licensed under a BSD-ish license.

There are 2 situations in which it makes a difference:
- closed source forks of BSP, but given BSP 3.0 source is available anyone 
 can do that anyway
- the non-GPL Doom ports want to include bits of BSP, or contribute bits 
 to it.

I don't much like the non-GPL ports, nor would closed source forks be nice, 
but I can't stop either, and by staying with a BSD-like license I think I 
reduce the chance of forking in the first place.

> (I'm not sure whether it would be OK to release under the GPL
> without the original authors' permission, though. In my
> understanding, the GPL does not insist on giving proper credit,
> unlike BSP's original "license".)

I think a "give credit" license is compatible with the GPL, which 
contains the same idea expressed as preserving copyright notices.

I'm still open to persuasion on this though :-).

Colin