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version 1.42, 2018/08/24 05:41:56

version 1.43, 2019/05/27 22:55:26

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<title>OpenBSD: Copyright Policy</title>

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<h2>

<font color="#e00000">Copyright Policy</font>

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<p>

<p>

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="https://cvsweb.openbsd.org/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 Unix source distribution un-encumbered

by proprietary code and commercial licensing.

<p>

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

to move forward on a competitive basis with other operating systems depends

on the willingness of the various development groups to exchange code amongst

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the ability to exchange and re-distribute code, while honoring the spirit of

the copyright and concept of attribution is fundamental to promoting the

cooperation of the people involved.

<p>

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

<h3>The Berkeley Copyright</h3>

<p>

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

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i.e. OpenBSD as a whole is freely redistributable, but some optional

components may not be.

<p>

<h3><font color="#e00000">Copyright Law</font></h3><p>

<h3>Copyright Law</h3>

<p>

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. 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>

<dl>

<dt>Original Work

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<dt>Compilations

<dd>A work that is a compilation of existing new and derivative works.

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<p>

The fundamental concept is that there is primacy of the copyright, that

is a copyright of a derivative work does not affect the rights held by

the owner of the copyright of the original work, rather only the part

added. Likewise the copyright of a compilation does not affect the rights

of the owner of the included works, only the compilation as an entity.

<p>

It is vitally important to understand that copyrights are broad protections

as defined by national and international copyright law. The "copyright

notices" usually included in source files are not copyrights, but rather

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license terms which grant permissions subject to copyright law and with

disclaimers that state the position of the copyright holder/distributor

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

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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>

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

<h3>Permissions — the flip side</h3>

<p>

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

a registration process, there needs to be a practical way to extend

permission to use a work beyond what might be allowed by "fair use"

provisions of the copyright laws.

<p>

This permission typically takes the form of a "release" or "license"

included in the work, which grants the additional uses beyond those

granted by copyright law, usually subject to a variety of conditions.

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he imposes no restrictions on use of the material, at the other

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 transfer 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;

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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>

</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

holder—the holder of a copyright on a derivative work can neither

grant additional permissions for use of the original work, nor impose more

restrictive conditions for use of that work.

<p>

Because copyright arises from the creation of a work and not the text

or a registration process, removing or altering a copyright notice or

associated release terms has no bearing on the existence of the copyright,

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and conditions does not supersede them, rather it casts doubts on the rights

of the person making the amendments to use the material and creates confusion

as to whether anyone can use the amended version or derivatives thereof.

<p>

Finally, releases are generally binding on the material that they

are distributed with. This means that if the originator of a work distributes

that work with a release granting certain permissions, those permissions

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the copyright holder decide to "go commercial" he can not revoke permissions

already granted for the use of the work as distributed, though he may impose

more restrictive permissions in his future distributions of that work.

<p>

<h3><font color="#e00000">Specific Cases</font></h3><p>

<h3>Specific Cases</h3>

<p>

This section attempts to summarize the position of OpenBSD relative to

some commonly encountered copyrights.

<p>

<dl>

<dt>Berkeley<dd><p>

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domain.

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