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1.12 deraadt 16: <p>
1.18 jufi 17: <h2><font color="#e00000">Copyright Policy</font></h2>
18: <hr>
1.12 deraadt 19:
1.18 jufi 20: <ul>
21: <li><h3><font color="#e00000">Goal</font></h3><p>
1.1 grr 22:
23: Copyright law is complex, OpenBSD policy is simple - OpenBSD strives to
1.11 millert 24: maintain the spirit of the original Berkeley Unix copyrights.
1.1 grr 25: <p>
1.12 deraadt 26:
1.3 grr 27: OpenBSD can exist as it does today because of the example set by the
28: Computer Systems Research Group at Berkeley and the battles which they
1.11 millert 29: and others fought to create a relatively un-encumbered Unix source
1.3 grr 30: distribution.
31: <p>
1.12 deraadt 32:
1.11 millert 33: The ability of a <strong>freely redistributable</strong> "Berkeley" Unix
1.3 grr 34: to move forward on a competitive basis with other operating systems depends
35: on the willingness of the various development groups to exchange code amongst
36: themselves and with other projects.
1.4 deraadt 37: Understanding the legal issues surrounding copyright is fundamental to
1.3 grr 38: the ability to exchange and re-distribute code, while honoring the spirit of
39: the copyright and concept of attribution is fundamental to promoting the
40: cooperation of the people involved.
41: <p>
1.12 deraadt 42:
1.18 jufi 43: <li><h3><font color="#e00000">The Berkeley Copyright</font></h3><p>
1.12 deraadt 44:
1.1 grr 45: The Berkeley copyright poses no restrictions on private or commercial
46: use of the software and imposes only simple and uniform requirements
47: for maintaining copyright notices in redistributed versions and
48: crediting the originator of the material <strong>only</strong> in
49: advertising.
50: <p>
1.13 deraadt 51: For instance:
52: <p>
53: <pre>
54: * Copyright (c) 1982, 1986, 1990, 1991, 1993
55: * The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
56: *
57: * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
58: * modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
59: * are met:
60: * 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
61: * notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
62: * 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
63: * notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
64: * documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
65: * 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
66: * must display the following acknowledgement:
67: * This product includes software developed by the University of
68: * California, Berkeley and its contributors.
69: * 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
70: * may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
71: * without specific prior written permission.
72: *
73: * THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
74: * ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
75: * IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
76: * ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
77: * FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
78: * DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
79: * OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
80: * HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
81: * LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
82: * OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
83: * SUCH DAMAGE.
84: *
85: </pre>
86: <p>
1.19 millert 87: Berkeley rescinded the 3rd term (the advertising term) on 22 July 1999.
88: Verbatim copies of the Berkeley license in the OpenBSD tree have that
89: term removed. In addition, many 3rd-party BSD-style licenses consist
90: solely of the first two terms.
1.13 deraadt 91: <p>
1.3 grr 92: Because the OpenBSD copyright imposes no conditions beyond those
93: imposed by the Berkeley copyright, OpenBSD can hope to share the same
94: wide distribution and applicability as the Berkeley distributions.
1.19 millert 95: It follows however, that OpenBSD cannot include material which
1.3 grr 96: includes copyrights which are more restrictive than the Berkeley
97: copyright, or must relegate this material to a secondary status,
98: i.e. OpenBSD as a whole is freely redistributable, but some optional
99: components may not be.
100: <p>
1.12 deraadt 101:
1.18 jufi 102: <li><h3><font color="#e00000">Copyright Law</font></h3><p>
1.1 grr 103: While the overall subject of copyright law is far beyond the scope of
1.2 grr 104: this document, some basics are in order. Under the current copyright law,
1.1 grr 105: copyrights are implicit in the creation of a new work and reside with
106: the creator, unless otherwise assigned. In general the copyright applies
107: only to the new work, not the material the work was derived from, nor
108: those portions of the derivative material included in the new work.
109: <p>
1.12 deraadt 110:
1.1 grr 111: Copyright law admits to three general categories of works:
112: <dl>
1.14 jufi 113: <dt>Original Work
1.1 grr 114: <dd>A new work that is not derived from an existing work.
115: <dt>Derivative Work
116: <dd>Work that is derived from, includes or amends existing works.
117: <dt>Compilations
118: <dd>A work that is a compilation of existing new and derivative works.
119: </dl>
1.12 deraadt 120: <p>
121:
1.1 grr 122: The fundamental concept is that there is primacy of the copyright, that
1.10 espie 123: is a copyright of a derivative work does not affect the rights held by
1.1 grr 124: the owner of the copyright of the original work, rather only the part
125: added. Likewise the copyright of a compilation does not affect the rights
126: of the owner of the included works, only the compilation as an entity.
127: <p>
1.12 deraadt 128:
1.1 grr 129: It is vitally important to understand that copyrights are broad protections
1.3 grr 130: as defined by national and international copyright law. The "copyright
131: notices" usually included in source files are not copyrights, but rather
132: notices that a party asserts that they hold copyright to the material or
1.5 todd 133: to part of the material. Typically these notices are associated with
1.3 grr 134: license terms which grant permissions subject to copyright law and with
135: disclaimers that state the position of the copyright holder/distributor
136: with respect to liability surrounding use of the material.
1.12 deraadt 137: <p>
138:
1.18 jufi 139: <li><h3><font color="#e00000">Permissions - the flip side</font></h3><p>
1.12 deraadt 140:
1.1 grr 141: Because copyrights arise from the creation of a work, rather than through
1.3 grr 142: a registration process, there needs to be a practical way to extend
1.16 jufi 143: permission to use a work beyond what might be allowed by "fair use"
1.1 grr 144: provisions of the copyright laws.
1.12 deraadt 145: <p>
146:
1.1 grr 147: This permission typically takes the form of a "release" or "license"
148: included in the work, which grants the additional uses beyond those
149: granted by copyright law, usually subject to a variety of conditions.
1.3 grr 150: At one extreme sits "public domain" where the originator asserts that
151: he imposes no restrictions on use of the material, at the other
152: restrictive clauses that actually grant no additional rights or impose
153: restrictive, discriminatory or impractical conditions on use of the work.
1.1 grr 154: <p>
1.12 deraadt 155:
1.3 grr 156: Again, an important point to note is that the release and conditions can
1.1 grr 157: only apply to the portion of the work that was originated by the copyright
158: holder - the holder of a copyright on a derivative work can neither
1.3 grr 159: grant additional permissions for use of the original work, nor impose more
160: restrictive conditions for use of that work.
1.1 grr 161: <p>
1.12 deraadt 162:
1.3 grr 163: Because copyright arises from the creation of a work and not the text
164: or a registration process, removing or altering a copyright notice or
1.10 espie 165: associated release terms has no bearing on the existence of the copyright,
1.20 jmc 166: rather all that is accomplished is to cast doubt upon whatever rights the
167: person making the modifications had to use the material in the first place.
168: Likewise, adding terms and conditions in conflict with the original terms
169: and conditions does not supersede them, rather it casts doubts on the rights
170: of the person making the amendments to use the material and creates confusion
171: as to whether anyone can use the amended version or derivatives thereof.
1.1 grr 172: <p>
1.12 deraadt 173:
1.1 grr 174: Finally, releases are generally binding on the material that they
175: are distributed with. This means that if the originator of a work distributes
176: that work with a release granting certain permissions, those permissions
177: apply as stated, without discrimination, to all persons legitimately
178: possessing a copy of the work. That means that having granted a permission,
179: the copyright holder can not retroactively say that an individual or class
180: of individuals are no longer granted those permissions. Likewise should
181: the copyright holder decide to "go commercial" he can not revoke permissions
182: already granted for the use of the work as distributed, though he may impose
183: more restrictive permissions in his future distributions of that work.
184: <p>
1.12 deraadt 185:
1.18 jufi 186: <li><h3><font color="#e00000">Specific Cases</font></h3><p>
1.12 deraadt 187:
1.1 grr 188: This section attempts to summarize the position of OpenBSD relative to
189: some commonly encountered copyrights.
1.12 deraadt 190: <p>
191:
1.1 grr 192: <dl>
193: <dt>Berkeley<dd><p>
194: The Berkeley copyright is the model for the OpenBSD copyright. It retains
195: the rights of the copyright holder, while imposing minimal conditions on
196: the use of the copyrighted material. Material with Berkeley copyrights,
1.3 grr 197: or copyrights closely adhering to the Berkeley model can generally be
198: included in OpenBSD.
1.12 deraadt 199: <p>
200:
1.1 grr 201: <dt>AT&T<dd><p>
1.19 millert 202: As part of its settlement with AT&T, Berkeley included an
203: AT&T copyright notice on some of the files in 4.4BSD lite and lite2.
204: The terms of this license are identical to the standard Berkeley license.
205: <p>
206: Additionally, OpenBSD includes some other AT&T code with non-restrictive
207: copyrights, such as the reference implementation of
208: <a href="http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/bwk/awk.tar.gz">awk</a>.
209: <p>
210:
211: <dt>Caldera<dd><p>
1.28 ! schwarze 212: The original Unix code (AT&T versions 1 through 7 UNIX, including 32V)
! 213: was freed by Caldera, Inc. on 23 January 2002 and is now available under a
1.19 millert 214: <a href="http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Caldera-license.pdf">4-term BSD-style license</a>.
1.28 ! schwarze 215: As a result, it would theoretically be possible to incorporate original
! 216: Unix code into OpenBSD. However, that code is now so old that it doesn't
! 217: satisfy today's interface and quality standards.
1.12 deraadt 218: <p>
219:
1.1 grr 220: <dt>DEC, Sun, other manufacturers/software houses.<dd><p>
221: In general OpenBSD does not include material copyrighted by manufacturers
222: or software houses. Material may be included where the copyright owner has
223: granted general permission for reuse without conditions, with terms similar
224: to the Berkeley copyright, or where the material is the product of an
1.8 d 225: employee and the employer's copyright notice effectively releases any
1.1 grr 226: rights they might have to the work.
1.12 deraadt 227: <p>
228:
1.1 grr 229: <dt>Carnegie-Mellon (CMU, Mach)<dd><p>
230: The Carnegie-Mellon copyright is similar to the Berkeley copyright, except
231: that it requests that derivative works be made available to Carnegie-Mellon.
232: Because this is only a request and not a condition, such material can still
233: be included in OpenBSD. It should be noted that existing versions of Mach
234: are still subject to AT&T copyrights, which prevents the general
235: distribution of Mach sources.
1.12 deraadt 236: <p>
237:
1.11 millert 238: <dt>Apache<dd><p>
1.28 ! schwarze 239: The original Apache license was similar to the Berkeley license,
! 240: but source code published under version 2 of the Apache license is
! 241: subject to additional restrictions and cannot be included into OpenBSD.
1.12 deraadt 242: <p>
243:
1.19 millert 244: <dt>ISC<dd><p>
245: The ISC copyright is functionally equivalent to a two-term BSD
246: copyright with language removed that is made unnecessary by the
247: Berne convention. This is the preferred license for new code
248: incorporated into OpenBSD. A sample license is included in
1.26 lum 249: the source tree as
250: <a href="http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/~checkout~/src/share/misc/license.template?rev=HEAD">
251: <tt>/usr/src/share/misc/license.template</tt></a>.
1.19 millert 252: <p>
253:
1.3 grr 254: <dt>GNU General Public License, GPL, LGPL, copyleft, etc.<dd><p>
1.1 grr 255: The GNU Public License and licenses modeled on it impose the restriction
256: that source code must be distributed or made available for all works that
1.3 grr 257: are derivatives of the GNU copyrighted code.
1.28 ! schwarze 258:
1.3 grr 259: <p>
1.28 ! schwarze 260: While this may superficially look like a noble strategy, it is a
! 261: condition that is typically unacceptable for commercial use of software.
! 262: So in practice, it usually ends up hindering free sharing and reuse
! 263: of code and ideas rather than encouraging it.
! 264: As a consequence, no additional software bound by the GPL terms
! 265: will be considered for inclusion into the OpenBSD base system.
1.12 deraadt 266:
1.3 grr 267: <p>
1.28 ! schwarze 268: For historical reasons, the OpenBSD base system still includes the
! 269: following GPL-licensed components: the GNU compiler collection (GCC)
! 270: with supporting binutils and libraries, GNU CVS, GNU texinfo, the
! 271: lynx text browser, the mkhybrid file system creation tool, and the
! 272: readline library. Replacement by equivalent, more freely licensed
! 273: tools is a long-term desideratum.
1.3 grr 274: <p>
1.12 deraadt 275:
1.1 grr 276: <dt>NetBSD<dd><p>
1.5 todd 277: Much of OpenBSD is originally based on and evolved from NetBSD, since some
1.3 grr 278: of the OpenBSD developers were involved in the NetBSD project. The general
279: NetBSD license terms are compatible with the Berkeley license and permit
280: such use. Material subject <strong>only</strong> to the general NetBSD
281: license can generally be included in OpenBSD.
282: <p>
1.12 deraadt 283:
1.11 millert 284: In the past, NetBSD has included material copyrighted by individuals
285: who have imposed license conditions beyond that of the general
286: NetBSD license, but granted the NetBSD Foundation license to
287: distribute the material. Such material can not be included in
288: OpenBSD as long as the conditions imposed are at odds with the
289: OpenBSD license terms or releases from those terms are offered on
290: a discriminatory basis.
1.12 deraadt 291: <p>
292:
1.1 grr 293: <dt>FreeBSD<dd><p>
1.3 grr 294: Most of FreeBSD is also based on Berkeley licensed material or includes
1.2 grr 295: copyright notices based on the Berkeley model. Such material can be
1.3 grr 296: included in OpenBSD, while those parts that are subject to GPL or
297: various individual copyright terms that are at odds with the OpenBSD license
298: can not be included in OpenBSD.
1.12 deraadt 299: <p>
300:
1.1 grr 301: <dt>Linux<dd><p>
302: Most of Linux is subject to GPL style licensing terms and therefore
1.2 grr 303: can not be included in OpenBSD. Individual components may be eligible,
1.1 grr 304: subject to the terms of the originator's copyright notices. Note that
1.8 d 305: Linux "distributions" may also be subject to additional copyright claims
1.1 grr 306: of the distributing organization, either as a compilation or on material
1.3 grr 307: included that is not part of the Linux core.
1.12 deraadt 308: <p>
309:
1.28 ! schwarze 310: <dt>X.Org<dd><p>
! 311: The X.Org Foundation maintains and distributes the X Window System
! 312: under a modified MIT license, which is quite similar to the BSD
! 313: license and additionally allows sublicensing. Under the name of
! 314: Xenocara, the OpenBSD base system includes an improved and actively
! 315: maintained version of the X.Org code.
1.12 deraadt 316: <p>
317:
1.1 grr 318: <dt>Shareware, Charityware, Freeware, etc.<dd><p>
319: Most "shareware" copyright notices impose conditions for redistribution,
320: use or visibility that are at conflict with the OpenBSD project goals.
321: Review on a case-by-case basis is required as to whether the wording
1.2 grr 322: of the conditions is acceptable in terms of conditions being requested vs.
1.1 grr 323: demanded and whether the spirit of the conditions is compatible with
1.2 grr 324: goals of the OpenBSD project.
1.12 deraadt 325: <p>
326:
1.1 grr 327: <dt>Public Domain<dd><p>
328: While material that is truly entered into the "Public Domain" can be
329: included in OpenBSD, review is required on a case by case basis.
1.3 grr 330: Frequently the "public domain" assertion is made by someone who does
331: not really hold all rights under Copyright law to grant that status or
1.1 grr 332: there are a variety of conditions imposed on use. For a work to be
1.3 grr 333: truly in the "Public Domain" all rights are abandoned and the material
334: is offered without restrictions.
1.12 deraadt 335: <p>
1.28 ! schwarze 336:
! 337: In some jurisdictions, it is doubtful whether voluntarily placing
! 338: one's own work into the public domain is legally possible.
! 339: For that reason, to make any substantial body of code free,
! 340: it is preferable to state the copyright and put it under an ISC
! 341: or BSD license instead of attempting to release it into the public
! 342: domain.
1.12 deraadt 343:
344: </dl>
345:
1.18 jufi 346: </ul>
1.1 grr 347:
348: </body>
349: </html>
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