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version 1.28, 2014/03/24 01:05:37

version 1.29, 2014/03/24 14:28:45

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maintain the spirit of the original Berkeley Unix copyrights.

provide code that can be freely used, copied, modified, and distributed

by anyone and for any purpose. This maintains the spirit of the original

Berkeley Software Distribution. The preferred wording of a license to be

applied to new code can be found in the

<a href="http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/share/misc/license.template?rev=HEAD">license template</a>.

<p>

OpenBSD can exist as it does today because of the example set by the

Computer Systems Research Group at Berkeley and the battles which they

and others fought to create a relatively un-encumbered Unix source

and others fought to create a Unix source distribution un-encumbered

distribution.

by proprietary code and commercial licensing.

<p>

The ability of a <strong>freely redistributable</strong> "Berkeley" Unix

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<li><h3><font color="#e00000">The Berkeley Copyright</font></h3><p>

The Berkeley copyright poses no restrictions on private or commercial

The original Berkeley copyright poses no restrictions on private or commercial

use of the software and imposes only simple and uniform requirements

for maintaining copyright notices in redistributed versions and

crediting the originator of the material <strong>only</strong> in

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While the overall subject of copyright law is far beyond the scope of

this document, some basics are in order. Under the current copyright law,

copyrights are implicit in the creation of a new work and reside with

the creator, unless otherwise assigned. In general the copyright applies

the creator. In general the copyright applies

only to the new work, not the material the work was derived from, nor

those portions of the derivative material included in the new work.

<p>

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with respect to liability surrounding use of the material.

<p>

By international law, specifically the Berne Convention for the

Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, part of the author's

includes the author's right "to claim authorship of the work and

to object to any distortion, mutilation or other modification of,

or other derogatory action in relation to, the said work, which

would be prejudicial to his honor or reputation". In some countries,

the law reserves additional inalienable moral rights to the author.

On the other hand, the author is free to transfer other parts

of his copyright, the so-called economic rights, in particular the

rights to use, copy, modify, distribute, and license the work.

<p>

<li><h3><font color="#e00000">Permissions - the flip side</font></h3><p>

Because copyrights arise from the creation of a work, rather than through

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restrictive clauses that actually grant no additional rights or impose

restrictive, discriminatory or impractical conditions on use of the work.

<p>

Note that a license is not to be confused with a copyright transfer.

While a tranfer would give the new copyright holder <em>exclusive</em>

rights to use the code and take these rights away from the author,

a license typically grants <em>additional</em> people non-exclusive

rights to use the code, while the authors retain all their rights.

<p>

The above observations regarding moral rights imply that putting

code under an ISC or two-clause BSD license essentially makes the

code as free as it can possibly get. Modifying the wording of these

licenses can only result in one of the three following effects:

<ul>

<li>making the code less free by adding additional restrictions

regarding its use, copying, modification or distribution;

<li>or effectively not changing anything by merely changing the wording,

but not changing anything substantial regarding the legal content;

<li>or making the license illegal by attempting to deprive the

authors of rights they cannot legally give away.

</ul><p>

Again, an important point to note is that the release and conditions can

only apply to the portion of the work that was originated by the copyright