On Tue, 2004-07-13 at 01:46, Niall Douglas wrote:
I'll just short circuit the answer to this because I thought the same as you until quite recently. The GPL's wording only mandates that derived code must supply its source, not that the derived code must also be GPLed.
Sorry Nial, afaik you're wrong.
If you take previously existing code you only need to assure it has a GPL-compatible license to make a new work base on both a GPL piece and this piece. Instead if you make _derivative_ code, that must fall under the GPL, otherwise you have no permission to use the GPL portion of the code you're deriving from.
Adding a pre-existing portion of BSD code to a GPL project is not deriving code, as it existed well before. Instead creating code as new that depends on the existing GPL code is a derivative work.
Derivative works and other works have really a completely different legal status in most legal systems.
Simo.