Question on Dual-Licensing Some Code for Phobos

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Thursday, November 30, 2017 19:17:32 Jack Stouffer via Digitalmars-d 
wrote:
> I'm starting work on a proposal for stdx.decimal, and one of the
> clearest implementations to work off of is the Python
> implementation.
>
> This however, poses a problem because Python's source is under
> the PSFL, a BSD-like permissive license. Any derivative work,
> such as a D conversion, must have the original copyright notice,
> a copy of the PSFL, as a well as a summary of changes. This is
> simple enough to do, but the resulting code would be
> dual-licensed with the PSFL and the BSL 1.0 (dual-licensing being
> relatively common in other OSS projects).
>
> My question is there any reason this could pose a problem? Could
> this interfere with something like distribution or company
> adoption?

IANAL, but I would have expected anything that was dual licensed would be
able to automatically be moved to one of those licenses, removing the other.
Otherwise, what was the point of dual licensing? Isn't the whole point of
dual licensing to allow you to pick which you're going to use? Restricting
the code to _both_ licenses simultaneously seems insane.

Andrei and/or Walter will have to respond on what the official stance is,
since it's their decision, but in general, we've required that all code be
Boost licensed, and if other licenses are required, that complicates things
considerably. Certainly, as liberal as the BSD licenses are, I don't want to
have to worry about suddenly having to deal with a BSD license because I
linked against Phobos. Phobos needs to have no strings attached.

> Also note, one of the existing Phobos modules, std.net.isemail,
> is supposed to be dual-licensed because it's derived from an
> existing BSD work. But, it's missing the BSD license from the top
> (and is technically breaking the license because of that).

If it needs a BSD license on it, then it probably should never have been
included in Phobos.

- Jonathan M Davis