Re: [gentoo-dev] Relicensing sys-freebsd/* under the BSD-2 license

[Joshua Kinard]

On 03/30/2012 15:36, Richard Yao wrote:

> It has nothing to do with the license of the package. That is completely
> separate. This has to do with the license of the ebuild itself.
>
> FreeBSD Ports inspired Daniel Robbins to create Portage. The issue that
> is our ability to share FreeBSD-specific improvements between ebuilds in
> portage and Makefiles in FreeBSD ports.
>
> The issues that are similar for both. Collaboration on FreeBSD-specific
> things in sys-freebsd/* would make life easier for both portage ebuild
> maintainers and FreeBSD port maintainers.


I would figure that since each is written in its own language (ebuilds in
bash, FBSD in Make), that all you have to do is share the idea of the fix.
Ideas themselves can't be licensed, but implementations can, and the idea
can be implemented in Makefile syntax in Ports under BSD-2, and in Portage
in Bash syntax under GPLv2.

That said, sometimes you just find entire chunks of BSD code in Linux,
complete with only the BSD copyright block:
See drivers/scsi/aic7xxx/queue.h

-- 
Joshua Kinard
Gentoo/MIPS
kumba@g.o
4096R/D25D95E3 2011-03-28

"The past tempts us, the present confuses us, the future frightens us.  And
our lives slip away, moment by moment, lost in that vast, terrible in-between."

--Emperor Turhan, Centauri Republic