Why didn SGI simply apply a license such as BSD, X, or Mozilla, with which the open source community is already familiar?
Actually, the SGI Free Software License B is closely modeled after the BSD, X, and Mozilla licenses. Among other effects, the “B” license enables code derived from the Sample Implementation to be distributed as part of the reference implementation of X or as part of Xfree86. SGI is, of course, a publicly held corporation, with certain minimum responsibilities to its shareholders, to protect its own software and the corporation. SGI used the minimum “legalese” to accomplish this in the license, and did its best to make the license as clear and concise as possible. This accounts for the greatest amount of difference between the SGI Free Software License B and Mozilla. One way in which the SGI Free Software License B is like BSD (and other similar licenses) is that it allows the user to use and modify the software in practically any way it likes – including even making commercial products from it.
Related Questions
- Why didn you just relicense the Mozilla code under a non-copyleft license (like the MIT or BSD licenses) that would be compatible with all other possible licenses?
- Why didn SGI simply apply a license such as BSD, X, or Mozilla, with which the open source community is already familiar?
- Is NetDIVE Open Source License (NOSL) Same as GNU or BSD?
