> > Now, you come along and say, "here's the Plan 9 compiler with a BSD
> > compatible license". Forgive us for being a tad skeptical. In order to
> > actually have that work, it's gotta be not the person who stuck their name
> > on the top, but rather ALL the people who claimed copyright on each file
> > that have to say, "Yes, we agree with this change".
> >
> > I'm not totally disbelieving you. Several years ago, I heard this had
> > happened. I went looking for evidence. I found none. Maybe it happened.
> > I could never find evidence, and that's not exactly something you keep
> > quiet.
> >
> > A link to the ATT, Lucent, Bell Labs, or Plan9 website saying, "we have
> > changed the license on the Plan9 compiler to MIT/BSD" would be nice.
> > I'm not sure what else could be considered acceptable, since as I
> > recall, it was their lawyers who insisted on the previous license.
> >
> > This should be an easy thing to demonstrate. But one has to understand
> > who has the authority to make the statement of license.
>
> i believe the gsoc port is based off of the Inferno version (which
> came from Plan 9).
>
> http://inferno-os.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/utils/NOTICE

I asked Ken Thompson (formerly worked on the Plan 9 compiler) about this issue and he indicated that he thought the Lucent license was even more "liberal" of a license.
Taking his advice, I looked over the Lucent license: http://www.opensource.org/licenses/lucent1.02.php
and section 3 has some very interesting statements:
"A. Distributor may choose to distribute ... under its own license agreement, provided that:"
and...
"if the Program is distributed in source code or other tangible form, a copy of this Agreement or Distributor's own license agreement is included with each copy of the Program"
It seems you can pick a different license than the Lucent license...?
then some conditions are listed if you choose to pick your own license instead of using the Lucent license:
condition a: It would seem that the final paragraph of the MIT license might fulfill condition a... though I don't see every last word in there, so I'm not sure if it completely fulfills the condition.
condition b: might be covered by the last paragraph of the MIT license
condition c: the kerncc MIT license might not fulfill this condition... as it might require making reference to the previous Lucent license?
Major condition B: Might comply
Major condition C: Don't know if the MIT license fits this.... What exactly is this condition saying?

Is it possible that the Lucent license does allow this change in licensing or am I missing and/or misunderstanding some parts?