Re: [GNU-linux-libre] Status of google chrome and chromium

[Brett Smith]

On Thu, 2009-12-10 at 14:30 +0100, Sam Geeraerts wrote:
> I'm not sure that all third party software licenses are free, though. 
> The list of software [1] says that bsdiff and bspatch fall under the 
> "BSD Protection License" [2]. Clause 3c says:
> 
> "The license under which the derivative work is distributed must 
> expressly prohibit the distribution of further derivative works."
> 
> So if I understand correctly this means that any derivatives would have 
> to fall under a non-free license.

>From reading the license briefly, my understanding is that you can
distribute modified versions by following the terms of *either* section
3 *or* section 4.  Section 4 replaces the requirement you quoted above
with:

    You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that
    in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program
    or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge
    to all third parties under the terms of this License.

This language is lifted directly from GPLv2, so suffice it to say this
requirement is not a freeness problem.  :)  So since you have an option
for distributing modified versions that is free (section 4), the fact
that there's another option that isn't free (section 3) doesn't keep the
software from being free.

(This license is *deeply* *deeply* ironic...)

-- 
Brett Smith
Licensing Compliance Engineer, Free Software Foundation

Support the FSF by becoming an Associate Member: http://fsf.org/jf