Re: (forw) Re: USB4BSD - release candidate 2 - coming to FreeBSD this week.

From: Carlos A. M. dos Santos <unixmania_at_gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2008 07:55:14 -0300
On Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 4:32 AM, Hans Petter Selasky <hselasky_at_c2i.net> wrote:
> On Friday 17 October 2008, Carlos A. M. dos Santos wrote:
>> On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 4:24 PM, Hans Petter Selasky <hselasky_at_c2i.net>
> wrote:
>> >> 6. Many files lack a copyright/license (e.g. modules/*).
>> >
>> > It is BSD licensed like the rest of the code.
>>
>> International law recognizes implicit copyright, not implicit
>> licensing. If you are the author then you are the implicit copyright
>> holder, unless you have signed a contract assigning the copyright to
>> someone else. So you are the only person legally allowed to add a
>> license statement to that code. Somebody else can do it, of course,
>> but only with your written permission; otherwise it would be a crime.
>
> Yes, but the files under modules/* are Makefile. Do Makefiles need a license.
> Else I completely agree with you.

>From a strictly legal POV even makefiles would need copyright licences
if they contained intellectual creation. Most makefiles, however, are
simple "this depends on that and is built this way" declarations.
Calling them intellectual creations is questionable, so they fall in a
grey area.

I'd add a licence to the makefiles anyway, at least while they were
part of a standalone package or patch set. Once they become integrated
to FreeBSD's code base, they can be considered as part of the system,
so the project's copyright and license terms will apply.

-- 
cd /usr/ports/sysutils/life
make clean
Received on Sat Oct 18 2008 - 08:55:16 UTC

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