On 9/1/07, David H. Lynch Jr.  wrote:
>     FSF/GPL licenses grant you the freedom to do almost anything EXCEPT

quoted text
> convert GPL'd code to proprietary code.

>

>     BSD/ISC Licenses claim to be "Totally Free" - specifically because

> you can convert the code to proprietary code.

You could not be more wrong, I think.  Seems to me the BSD license is

designed precisely to prevent this.  Granting of rights != transfer of

ownership.  You can _use_ BSD-licensed code in a proprietary product;

that does not mean you have a proprietary claim on the BSD-licensed

code.  That's the point of requiring that the copyright/license notice

be retained.  There is no "conversion to proprietary code" here.
In this respect GPL and BSD are in complete agreement.  The difference

is in the obligations they impose on the licensee regarding use.  BSD

imposes one simple negative condition - you /must not/ remove the

license.  GPL imposes a more complex set of positive conditions - you

/must/ make alterations available under the same license.  In neither

case does ownership enter the picture.
Copyright law goes back centuries, contract law goes back to the

Romans.  There's more than meets the eye there; "common sense"

interpretations uninformed by some degree of awareness of the legal

traditions - as in, "I don't see anything in there that says I can't

do X" is almost certain to be wrong.
IANAL, though.  Talk to one of them if you really have a burning

desire to understand all this.  Even then, only the courts can settle

the matter.
-Gregg