[Babel-users] Babeld merged with GPL headers against copyright holders' wishes

[Pieter Hintjens]

On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 10:31 AM, Gabriel Kerneis
<kerneis at pps.jussieu.fr> wrote:

> Hmm, the licence grants explicitely the right to "sublicence", which looks a bit
> different from "relicence".  I see your point, though.

Yes, sub-license. That's why your original copyright header remains there.

Legally, the BSD or MIT/X11 licenses *explicitly* grant projects under
any license the right to take the code, add their own headers and
sub-license the derived work. "Any license" includes GPL.

Emotionally, the problem is that you expect free software to play by
your rules. You see your work sub-licensed in a form you cannot remix
back into the original code. And this seems unfair. But it's 100% fair
by the rules you choose, namely your "permissive" license.

If you insist on derived work being remixable, use GPLv3. If you don't
care, use MIT/X11 or BSD. But really, you should be more aware of the
full impact of the license you are using, and it is ungraceful to be
angry with those who apply your rules accurately, when it's you that
did not properly understand them.

-Pieter