Re: License Problem? Was: [Wireshark-commits] rev 32785 ...

[Guy Harris <guy () alum mit edu>]

On May 13, 2010, at 3:10 PM, Joerg Mayer wrote:

> On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 03:19:45PM +0000, morriss () wireshark org wrote:
> > http://anonsvn.wireshark.org/viewvc/viewvc.cgi?view=rev&revision=32785
> >
> > User: morriss
> > Date: 2010/05/13 08:19 AM
> >
> > Log:
> > From Robert Hogan via https://bugs.wireshark.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=4257 :
> >
> > Correctly decode and display the buffer address in SBA orders.
> >
> >
> > Note: This includes a macro with a new license which is added to COPYING.
>
> This looks like the 4-clause BSD license to me, which is incompatible
> to the GPLv2+, or am I wrong?

I think it is:

        http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLIncompatibleLicenses

"Original BSD license
(Note: on the preceding link, the original BSD license is listed in the UCB/LBL section. This license is also sometimes 
called the “4-clause BSD license”.)

This is a simple, permissive non-copyleft free software license with a serious flaw: the “obnoxious BSD advertising 
clause”. The flaw is not fatal; that is, it does not render the software non-free. But it does cause practical 
problems, including incompatibility with the GNU GPL."

which links to

        http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html

which says:

        There are many variants of simple non-copyleft free software licenses, such as the Expat license, FreeBSD 
license, X10 license, the X11 license, and the two BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) licenses. Most of them are 
equivalent except for details of wording, but the license used for BSD until 1999 had a special problem: the “obnoxious 
BSD advertising clause”. It said that every advertisement mentioning the software must include a particular sentence:

        3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
           must display the following acknowledgement:
             This product includes software developed by the University of
             California, Berkeley and its contributors.

        Initially the obnoxious BSD advertising clause was used only in the Berkeley Software Distribution. That did 
not cause any particular problem, because including one sentence in an ad is not a great practical difficulty.

        If other developers who used BSD-like licenses had copied the BSD advertising clause verbatim—including the 
sentence that refers to the University of California—then they would not have made the problem any bigger.

        But, as you might expect, other developers did not copy the clause verbatim. They changed it, replacing 
“University of California” with their own institution or their own names. The result is a plethora of licenses, 
requiring a plethora of different sentences.

        When people put many such programs together in an operating system, the result is a serious problem. Imagine if 
a software system required 75 different sentences, each one naming a different author or group of authors. To advertise 
that, you would need a full-page ad.

        This might seem like extrapolation ad absurdum, but it is actual fact. In a 1997 version of NetBSD, I counted 
75 of these sentences. (Fortunately NetBSD has decided to stop adding them, and to remove those it could.)

I don't know what copyright this Web page:

        http://tommysprinkle.com/mvs/P3270/sbaxlate.htm

and the table page going along with it:

        http://tommysprinkle.com/mvs/P3270/bufaddr.htm

has, but that might be the same operation (if TN3270 just sends a 3270 data stream over the wire).  If somebody wants 
to write up some code that takes two bytes and turns them into a row and column address, reversing the transformation 
described on that page - *without* looking at the TN3270 dissector - and send them to me or the list for inclusion in 
that routine, that might help.  (I've already seen the offending code, so I'm not sure I should write any replacement.)
___________________________________________________________________________
Sent via:    Wireshark-dev mailing list <wireshark-dev () wireshark org>
Archives:    http://www.wireshark.org/lists/wireshark-dev
Unsubscribe: https://wireshark.org/mailman/options/wireshark-dev
             mailto:wireshark-dev-request () wireshark org?subject=unsubscribe