[pups] Re: Condition of 2BSD
Steven M. Schultz
sms at 2BSD.COM
Thu Mar 20 03:40:30 AEST 2003
Hi -
I received a mail item from Johnny Billquist but the fine folks
at Update.UU.SE don't seem to recognize that networks can be
subdivided and that _my_ portion has never sent or relayed spam
Hope Johnny doesn't mind the reply going here instead.
----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
bqt at update.uu.se
(reason: 553 5.3.0 <bqt at update.uu.se>... SMTP from 64.32.150.18 blocked by Update due to spam sent/relayed from this network;contact postmaster at Update.UU.SE for details)
----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to tempo.update.uu.se.:
>>> RCPT To:<bqt at update.uu.se>
<<< 553 5.3.0 <bqt at update.uu.se>... SMTP from 64.32.150.18 blocked by Update due to spam sent/relayed from this network;contact postmaster at Update.UU.SE for details
550 5.1.1 bqt at update.uu.se... User unknown
Hi!
> I have a small question, which I hope you can clarify for me. I'm in a
> little argument with a person involved in NetBSD.
Ummm, I'm not a lawyer of course...
> He claims that NetBSD is the oldest free BSD still alive, which I reacted
> to since it was my belief that 2BSD now is free.
But is 2BSD free? That I don't know. It is more free than it was
a long time ago but
> This have resulted in the claim that Berkley is the one that is
> restricting 2BSD, which was news to me. Is this in any way correct? The
>
> * Copyright (c) 1986 Regents of the University of California.
> * All rights reserved. The Berkeley software License Agreement
> * specifies the terms and conditions for redistribution.
That was the earlier version of the BSD license - when you had to have
a ATT/USL/BellLabs license in order to obtain BSD at all.
I am not sure I have a copy of the original UCB license but I think
part of it involved having a ATT/USL license.
The 'BSD' part of the UCB license permitted free sharing of the
UCB portions of the system. The questionable parts involved
the original ATT/USL code. If the current owners say that the original
(non-UCB) portions are free then that means the entire system is
free.
> I believed that this was/is more or less the same as the current BSD
> license (except that it still have the clause that any software
> incorporating code from BSD must say so).
At a later time the BSD license agreement added words about
redistributing the code with or without modification as long as
credit was given.
> But appearantly this other guy is claiming that Berkley hasn't let 2BSD
> free at all.
I'm not sure UCB even knows what 2BSD is any more.
> Can you clarify this for me, please? :-)
Does the current state of the Caldera/SCO/whatever license override
any existing licenses? THAT I do not know. If that is the case
then I would say that 2BSD is indeed free, on the other hand if people
are still legally constrained by the earlier license then 2BSD is
not totally free. Earlier versions of NetBSD would not be free
either because they contain "encumbered code" from the era when a
ATT/USL license was required.
I think it unlikely that anyone is going to send the 'software police'
out to kick down a person's door because they're running 2BSD - sounds
like that era is over at last. That's free enough for most people
I think.
Steve
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