Re: Is the BitKeeper network protocol documented?

Larry McVoy
2003-01-22T15:29:18Z

On Wed, Jan 22, 2003 at 10:27:40AM -0500, Dana Lacoste wrote:
> On Wed, 2003-01-22 at 10:18, Larry McVoy wrote:
>
> > A boundary is a boundary. It doesn't matter how much you want or need
> > what is on the other side of that boundary, you don't get to make your
> > license cross that boundary, the law doesn't work that way.
>
> Thus the concept of "derivative work."

Derivative works don't get to cross boundaries. A boundary is a trump
card, it's like a patent, it has strength. Go dig into the legal
findings in this area. My memory is that anything you can pull out and
replace with another implementation constitutes a boundary and you may
have different licenses on either side of that boundary without fear of
them fighting. So a derivative work which can't be easily replaced
doesn't get to have a different license than the basis. On the other
hand, something which plugs into an interface, like a driver or a
file system, could have a different license.
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Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitmover.com/lm