Branden Robinson wrote: > On Thu, May 13, 2004 at 12:14:51AM +1000, Luke Mewburn wrote: >>Note that other organisations have contributed code to NetBSD >>under what's effectively a clause 1 & 4 license, which is >>considered less onerous restrictions on third party binary >>distributors because they don't have to compile a list of >>copyrights for their documentation to meet clause 2 and >>clause 3. An example of this can be found at: >> >> http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/~checkout~/src/sys/arch/mips/sibyte/dev/sbmac.c?rev=1.19&content-type=text/plain >> >>(FWIW: I understand that this should be GPL compatible) > > > I don't think it is. This license is clearly related to the BSD license > but is not simply the original 4-clause BSD license with parts deleted. > There are wording changes as well. > > Anyway, it's not GPL-compatible because it says: > > * The "Broadcom Corporation" name may not be > * used to endorse or promote products derived from this software > * without the prior written permission of Broadcom Corporation. > > This is an additional restriction not present in the GNU GPL.
So why does the GNU Project list the "modified BSD license" on their licenses page under "GPL-Compatible, Free Software Licenses" (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html), when the version of that license they link to on the XFree86 page (http://www.xfree86.org/3.3.6/COPYRIGHT2.html#5) contains: > 3. The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote > products derived from this software without specific prior written > permission. I believe the GNU Project's rationale for this is the same as the explanation you provided for why these clauses are not necessary: since you cannot do what they prohibit even if they were not present in the license, they are not additional restrictions above the GPL. - Josh Triplett
