During the continuing debates regarding the legality and fairness of re-licensing BSD licensed code, it was asked why the BSD license couldn't be extracted from Windows applications known to include BSD licensed code. OpenBSD creator Theo de Raadt explained, "what you ran strings on is not 'source code'. It was the binary," pointing to the first clause of the BSD license used by the code in question which says, "redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer." He then quoted the second clause of the BSD license, "redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution," and added, "if you take your Microsoft documentation, and dig really deep, you will find the whole notice copied into it there. Go ahead, you'll find it."

Theo continued, explaining that earlier versions of the BSD license used in OpenBSD and other BSD projects still had the advertising clause which required all advertising materials for products using their code to include a notice stating, "this product includes software developed by the University of California, Berkeley and its contributors." He added, "and.. once again, older copies of Windows DID follow that rule, too, just like Sun and everyone else," noting that one exception was AT&T and the Unix System Laboratories, "who included modified BSD manuals in their Unixware commercial distributions, and that mistake resulted in USL losing the USL v BSDI & University of California lawsuit. (I have simplified the situation, s/losing/settling at a serious loss/)."

Discussion continues on the Linux Kernel mailing list about the legality and morality of re-licensing BSD/GPL dual-licensed code under only the GPL. Alan Cox replied to Theo de Raadt's comments suggesting he was encouraging people to break the law, "re-read my email and then apologize. I do question the .h files where they are BSD licence and no changes were made to the work. I also point out that the dual licence on that code appears to give permission to distribute under one of those licences by choice." In response to Theo's request that code be shared both ways rather than converted to a sole GPL, "that's about the first thing I would agree on - its somewhat rude and not something I personally would usually choose todo." He then cautioned that this was a limitation of the BSD license:

"If OpenBSD wants a world where code must be returned, but you can mix it with free code in a product in some fashion and do binary only releases then OpenBSD needs to fix its licencing. Not to GPL which is clearly not the BSD intention but to something which does what BSD wants rather than an academic research licence developed thirty odd years ago for the purpose of showing that US research funds were properly spent. Perhaps its time for BSD2 licencing?"

OpenBSD project creator Theo de Raadt detailed his concerns regarding BSD-licensed code and Dual-BSD/GPL-licensed code being re-licensed under only the GPL as previously discussed here, "honestly, I was greatly troubled by the situation, because even people like Alan Cox were giving other Linux developers advice to ... break the law. And furthermore, there are even greater potential risks for how the various communities interact." He went on to add:

"It may seem that the licenses let one _distribute_ it under either license, but this interpretation of the license is false -- it is still illegal to break up, cut up, or modify someone else's legal document, and, it cannot be replaced by another license because it may not be removed. Hence, a dual licensed file always remains dual licensed, every time it is distributed."

Theo then talked about cases where a significant amount of code is added or changed, "if you add 'large pieces of originality' to the code which are valid for copyright protection on their own, you may choose to put a different and separate (must be non-conflicting...) license at the top of the file above the existing license." He then suggested, "if you wish for everyone to remain friends, you should give code back. That means (at some ethical or friendliness level) you probably do not want to put a GPL at the top of a BSD or ISC file, because you would be telling the people who wrote the BSD or ISC file, 'thanks for what you wrote, but this is a one-way street, you give us code, and we take it, we give you you nothing back.'"

In a recent series of patches posted to the Linux Kernel mailing list, it was proposed that some imported Atheros wireless device drivers be re-licensed, some from a dual-BSD/GPL license, others from a modified BSD license, all to a pure GPLv2 license. Christoph Hellwig asked, "is this really a good idea? Most of the reverse-engineering was done by the OpenBSD folks, and it would certainly be helpful to work together with them on new hardware revisions, etc.." Luis Rodriguez suggested that there was no choice, "technically the best we can do is to leave the license as dual licensed, but keep in that technically that means nothing and is just for show, the GPL is what would apply as its derivative work and is the most restrictive license."

The patch series was also discussed on OpenBSD's -misc mailing list where it was asked, "is Reyk [Floeter] and others working on this drivers code dual licensed (from the diff it doesn't seem like it is, since I see a BSD 3 Clause)? Also say I submit a patch for this driver, does that mean this will have to be dual licensed also or can I choose if it is BSD 3 Clause or GPLv2?" Theo de Raadt replied pointing out that there are two parts to the driver, one part written by Reyk Floeter, and another part written by Sam Leffler, "Reyk's code is *NOT* dual-licensed under the GPL. He has explicitly stated that his code is not dual-licenced. The file have no GPL on them. He's the author, he said so. None else can add a GPL to it." He went on to note that the files written by Sam Leffler are dual licensed with the clause, "alternatively, this software may be distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License ("GPL") version 2 as published by the Free Software Foundation," stressing that 'alternatively' means 'or', "that means that if anyone makes changes to that file and distributes it, after their changes are in the file then EITHER license will apply."

Matthew Dillon created DragonFly BSD in June of 2003 as a fork of the FreeBSD 4.8 codebase. KernelTrap first spoke with Matthew back in January of 2002 while he was still a FreeBSD developer and a year before his current project was started. He explains that the DragonFly project's primary goal is to design a "fully cross-machine coherent and transparent cluster OS capable of migrating processes (and thus the work load) on the fly."

In this interview, Matthew discusses his incentive for starting a new BSD project and briefly compares DragonFly to FreeBSD and the other BSD projects. He goes on to discuss the new features in today's DragonFly 1.10 release. He also offers an in-depth explanation of the project's cluster goals, including a thorough description of his ambitious new clustering filesystem. Finally, he reflects back on some of his earlier experiences with FreeBSD and Linux, and explains the importance of the BSD license.

Matthew Dillon has announced the release of DragonFly BSD 1.10, the sixth major DragonFly release since the project's creation in 2003. The release notes say "we consider 1.10 to be more stable then 1.8," and summarize some of the new features:

"Several big-ticket items are present in this release. Our default ATA driver has been switched to NATA (ported from FreeBSD). NATAs big claim to fame is support for AHCI which is the native SATA protocol standard. It is far, far better then the old ATA/IDE protocol. DragonFly now has non-booting support for GPT partitioning and 64 bit disklabels. Non-booting means we don't have boot support for these formats yet. DragonFly's Light Weight Process abstraction is now finished and working via libthread_xu but the default threading library is not quite ready to be changed from libc_r yet. All threaded programs now link against an actual 'libpthread' which is a softlink to libc_r or libthread_xu, allowing the new threading library to be tested more fully."

"OpenBSD is free as in air," Theo de Raadt [interview] stated in a recent thread on the OpenBSD -misc mailing list. The discussion began with a note that the Open Sound System [story] had recently been "open sourced" under the GPLv2 and CDDL leading Theo to comment, "noone cares about being Open and Free anymore. They just care about being called Open and Free, and how convenient -- a bunch of laywers generated an organization that will label them Open and Free when they are not in fact so."

Later in the discussion it was asked why the OpenBSD project used the BSD license rather than simply releasing the code into the Public Domain. Theo explained, "we wish to retain the legal right to be known as the author, and not have our names taken off the files. With public domain, that stuff at the top of the file is taken away first, before anything else is done," noting that this is explained in the license at the top of each file, "just that bit; nothing else."

A lengthy debate that began with a suggestion to dual license the Linux kernel under the GPLv2 and the GPLv3 [story] continues on the Linux Kernel Mailing List. Throughout the ongoing thread Linux creator Linus Torvalds has spoken out on the GPLv2, the upcoming GPLv3, the BSD license, Tivo, the Free Software Foundation, and much more. During the discussion, he was asked we he chose the GPLv2 over the BSD license when he's obviously not a big fan of the FSF. Linus explained:

"Because I think the GPLv2 is a great license. And I don't like the FSF's radical world-view, but I am able to separate the license (the GPLv2) from the author and source of the license (rms and the FSF). Why do people always confuse the two? The GPLv2 stands on its own. The fact that I disagree with the FSF on how to act has _zero_ relevance for my choice of license.

"[...] But for a project I actually care about, I would never choose the BSD license. The license doesn't encode my fundamental beliefs of 'fairness'. I think the BSD license encourages a 'everybody for himself' mentality, and doesn't encourage people to work together, and to merge."

"ANY rule which reduces your rights is unacceptable," explained Theo de Raadt [interview] in a brief discussion on the OpenBSD -misc mailing list, "especially when the full consequences of such a set of rules may be unclear -- which it always is." The comment was in response to a query about why Intel's firmware was considered non-free. Theo went on to explain:

"Normal free software has no 'contract law' issues, because it is simply given away under 'copyright law with almost all author's rights revoked'. Contract law works differently, because it is based more on the principle of 'you got something, now you have to give something back'. The minute you see a URL like that explaining things in such a way, you should realize that the addition of 'rules' means you are in a different legal system.

"Copyright has no way to apply such rules, therefore [the Intel firmware] is not free."

Greg Kroah-Hartman's announcement for free Linux driver development [story] included the necesssary legal framework to honor NDAs when creating GPL'd drivers. This allowance was discussed on the OpenBSD -misc mailing list. In a public exchange with Greg KH, Stephan Rickauer said, "now these companies have a great excuse to keep specs locked up tight under NDA, while pretending to be 'open.' The OpenBSD project has made clear more than once how this will hurt Free Software in the long run. Signing NDA's ensures that Linux gets a working driver, sure, but the internals are indistinguishable from magic. It is a source code version of a blob." OpenBSD founder Theo de Raadt [interview] called the free driver effort a farce, "you are trying to make sure that maintainers of code -- ie. any random joe who wants to improve the code in the future -- has LESS ACCESS to docs later on because someone signed an NDA to write it in the first place. You are making a very big mistake."

Greg pointed the discussion to his FAQ in which the final question asks about the BSD operating systems and the answer states, "what about them? They are free to do whatever they wish, I have no input into their development at all, sorry." Greg further clarified, "well, as my goal is to have a GPL driver for everything, I don't see how this can hurt :) Now others can have different goals, and that's great and fine. I'm not saying you can't work on something if you wish to do so."

The OpenBSD project has long been associated with security. Indeed, thanks to proactively and regularly auditing its code, the project's web site is able to boast "only one remote hole in the default install, in more than 8 years," and another page states "our aspiration is to be NUMBER ONE in the industry for security (if we are not already there)." However, security is not the only focus of OpenBSD, as reflected in the project's slogan which reads, "Free, Functional and Secure." All three of these words are strongly backed by OpenBSD developers.

If you speak with OpenBSD creator Theo de Raadt for any length of time, you will quickly realize just how important freedom is to the project. For example, freedom was the driving force behind the now ubiquitous OpenSSH, developed within the OpenBSD project. It has also lead to the development of OpenNTPD, OpenCVS, and the widely used pf Packet filter [story]. In recognition of these many contributions, Theo recently received the 2004 Free Software Award from the Free Software Foundation. The freedom that the OpenBSD team works so hard for comes without any strings, patents, or conditions, distributed under the BSD license.

Currently, the OpenBSD project is focusing on wireless networking technology, working to convince hardware manufacturers to make the firmware for their wireless cards freely distributable. It sounds simple enough, but the effort has taken much persistence and perseverance. Many of today's corporations require the signing of non-disclosure agreements and other legal red tape prior to making firmware or documentation available, requirements that don't measure up to OpenBSD's standards for freedom.

KernelTrap has spoken with guru Jordan Hubbard, one of the creators of FreeBSD and currently a manager of Apple's Darwin project. With just a high school education, Jordan has offered some impressive contributions to the world of computing.

In this interview, Jordan talks about his current involvement with Darwin, as well as his past efforts with FreeBSD and 386BSD. He also reflects on his recent decision to step down from the core FreeBSD team. Read on for the full interview.