3

I like a library released under BSD license. This library is not actively maintained since late 2007.

  • Can I fork the library and relicensing under an Creative Commons license?
  • The original author must be informed?
  • Are there problems other than these?

EDIT

Based on the feedback provided by several answers I'm providing more details on my specific case.

I'm rewriting some low level code of a BSD licensed library (JLine) using a LGPL library (JNA). Can I publish this work in a different license?

Vertexwahn
  • 7,709
  • 6
  • 64
  • 90
dfa
  • 114,442
  • 31
  • 189
  • 228
  • What do you mean by "using a LGPL library"? Using code from the LGPL library (copy paste some parts)? Related on programmers: http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/75436/relicense-bsd-2-3-clause-code-to-gpl – Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com May 16 '15 at 23:37
  • 3
    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is about licensing or legal issues, not programming or software development. [See here](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/274963/questions-about-licensing/274964#274964) for details, and the [help] for more. – JasonMArcher Jun 03 '15 at 03:59

6 Answers6

11

You can't remove the BSD license. What you can do is put it under another license also. For example, Microsoft adopted BSD networking code at one time. If you looked at the appropriate displays, you'd find the notices required by the license. On the other hand, Microsoft's copy was also under whatever license Microsoft used, and Microsoft's modifications were neither Free nor Open Source software.

Unless it's some weird variation of the BSD license, there is no obligation to inform the original author. You should try to do that, though, out of common courtesy to somebody who made your life easier. The author may want to find a new maintainer, for example, and may help you out.

However, why do you want to relicense it? I don't know which CC license you're interested in, and there's a great variety of them, but what's the benefit here?

David Thornley
  • 56,304
  • 9
  • 91
  • 158
  • 1
    There's only one reason to remove the BSD license to a CC one. That is the removal of the need to credit the author in derivative works. – Unknown May 04 '09 at 22:04
  • 1
    Which can't be done. However, different CC licenses have different restrictions. At least one forbids commercial use. I don't think that's a good license for software, but if it isn't my software I don't decide on the license. – David Thornley May 05 '09 at 13:50
6

You can do many things with BSD licensed code, but you can't exactly "relicense" it. The couple of paragraphs you see in the code is the actual license, and it tells you exactly what you must do and not do. It's very short and simple enough to understand, unlike most other licenses: keep the license and copyright notices.

Code you add can be licensed as you wish.

dwc
  • 24,196
  • 7
  • 44
  • 55
5

Unless you own the copyright for a work, you cannot change the license. You can fork the code, but the license is not yours to change. This is true no matter what the original license is (unless the license specifically gives you rights to relicense).

Only the copyright holder can issue a different license, so you should try and contact them.

Ville Laurikari
  • 28,380
  • 7
  • 60
  • 55
  • Before contacting the author, you should consider if the existing license works for your purposes after all. – dwc May 07 '09 at 16:28
  • 1
    Actually, it depends on the license. For example, the LGPL states that you can re-license to GPL, and GPL can be relicensed to AGPL, IIRC. Some licenses don't forbid adding terms to the original license, therefore, altering the resulting license. – WhyNotHugo Jun 25 '12 at 23:08
  • 1
    MIT license explicitly states that someone in possession of the code may relicense the code. – Frank Shearar Sep 14 '12 at 10:44
  • 1
    While the question title asks about re-licensing, the body describes sub-licensing. That is taking a work under one license and making some or all of the rights you received available under a different license. Some licenses explicitly allow this. – Oli Mar 26 '15 at 21:47
4

As you don't own the code, you can't relicense it. However, the BSD license is so unrestrictive that you can also license it under another more restrictive license such as GPL. However, you probably don't want to use CC, it is made for media, not software. Real software licenses will give you much less problems. If you want it to be unrestrictive, keep it as BSD. If you want it to be more restrictive than that, consider GPL or LGPL.

Zifre
  • 26,504
  • 11
  • 85
  • 105
  • If you include the BSD license in your copies, it means the code is still BSD and it cannot be under GPL at the same time. Correct? Otherwise a file would state you can do anything you want with the code (BSD) and at the same time you can't do anything you want with the code, because you must open the modifications (GPL)? – warvariuc Jan 07 '19 at 18:37
2

Depending on the license, you could sub license the work (some BSD-like licenses allow that, especially for derivative works) but you can't remove the licensing requirements (such as attribution, or the copyright statements). You don't own the copyright, you just have permission to use it. Which license you can use to sub license will depend on the license. Some may work, some will not, depending on the license.

When you fork the code, you will have to remove any trademarks used, and rename the project, of course.

All that being said, if the author(s) hold copyright to all of the code, you could ask them to license it to you under your preferred license. Since they use a BSD-like license, they would probably be open to it.

Yishai
  • 90,445
  • 31
  • 189
  • 263
2

Creative Commons is generally used for creative works: music, literature, etc. - I'm not sure if it would apply to a chunk of code or not.

For relicensing code, you might want to use a software-specific licence, like the GPL, Apache or Mozilla licences. There's tons to choose from, depending on your requirements.

Jacob Hume
  • 1,953
  • 2
  • 13
  • 14