Re: linux-ipsec: Pluto structure ideas (& GPL/BSD)

> What I would want would be to contribute isakmpd in some way to the
> Linux society, although I am a bit religous about the licence, and I
> know the FreeS/WAN project team is as well :-(

My understanding of copyright law is that GPL code can be mixed with BSD-licensed code, and the result must follow both licenses. Thus if bits of isakmpd were merged into freeswan, you couldn't distribute binaries without source, and advertisements would have to insert a blab about Ericsson. The assorted new terms like the blab are a nuisance (and are probably honored mostly in the breach, so I don't understand why they keep putting them in), but not a significant nuisance.

Niklas might not choose to accept code from the Linux developers (all of whose code is GPL), but they can accept code from him.

(This is not precisely why Linux has grown much faster than the BSDs, but has a lot to do with it, I think. Another part is that people can't take Linux proprietary, so they share the improvements they make. Taking BSDs proprietary is the *usual* way to enhance them -- like SunOS, Ultrix, or BSDI. Linux requires sharing, BSD only encourages it. Some of the main contributors to (BSD) free software have one by one turned away from sharing as they went into business, because they can't envision business models that work with sharing. I *can* envision them, so I share. And I encourage non-sharers to share, by making them reimplement my work if they want the right to keep their contribution proprietary.)

        John Received on Wed Dec 23 21:40:03 1998