[Firebird-devel] License

[Mike N. <ta...@al...>]

The recent license discussion turned up something rather interesting. Have a
look at e.g. jrd/ib_stdio.[hc].

It's FreeBSD code, obviously released using the BSD license, which require

<quote>
 * 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
 *    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
 *    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
 * 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
 *    must display the following acknowledgement:
 * This product includes software developed by the University of
 * California, Berkeley and its contributors.
</quote>

I'm currently not aware that neither we, nor Inprise/Borland, follow #2
above, thereby making redistribution of binaries essentially illegal. No
Helen, I don't want to hear "that's rubbish" - I want to hear I'm ignorant
and that I just haven't seen that "documentation and/or other materials
provided with the distribution", and that it indeed is included.

I also note that I have never seen Inprise/Borland acknowledge "The
Regents..." in any advertising material.


Another "interesting" situation arise in jrd/ansi.h. This is also a FreeBSD
header file, but it _also_ contains

<quote>
 * The contents of this file are subject to the Interbase Public
 * License Version 1.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file
 * except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy
 * of the License at http://www.Inprise.com/IPL.html
 *
 * Software distributed under the License is distributed on an
 * "AS IS" basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express
 * or implied. See the License for the specific language governing
 * rights and limitations under the License.
 *
 * The Original Code was created by Inprise Corporation
 * and its predecessors. Portions created by Inprise Corporation are
 * Copyright (C) Inprise Corporation.
</quote>

Isn't it strange that the copyright notice, normally found at the top of
every BSD file, is removed from this one, that scattered parts of the
license remains (though it's quite mutilated), and Inprise claims both
copyright and "Original Code was created by Inprise" of the file? Especially
since the RCS id _clearly_ states it to be a FreeBSD header file!

Since 1) the BSD license is mutilated and thereby invalid, and 2) this code
seems to be stolen by Inprise, we can IMO neither continue to use, nor
distribute that header file.


/Mike