It's perfectly legal for Foxit to license their own software to Google to be released under the terms of the BSD license. This would be with Foxit's consent, of course.
It's important to understand that a license isn't on the code itself, but merely on a copy of the code. A copyright owner reserves full rights to whatever the hell they want to do with their code; open-source projects just release a version with a specific set of restrictions. It gets more interesting with contributors, and specifying a license for the contributed code.
I used the term 'initially' for a reason. My guess would be that the Chrome team used the Foxit SDK to get it out the door quickly, then over time and with Foxit guidance, replaced parts with their home grown source. That's just a guess, though.
Comments
Foxit isn't open-source, so I don't think it would be legal to release a derivative under the BSD license (IANAL).
It's perfectly legal for Foxit to license their own software to Google to be released under the terms of the BSD license. This would be with Foxit's consent, of course.
Right, and probably some money changing hands.
It's important to understand that a license isn't on the code itself, but merely on a copy of the code. A copyright owner reserves full rights to whatever the hell they want to do with their code; open-source projects just release a version with a specific set of restrictions. It gets more interesting with contributors, and specifying a license for the contributed code.
I used the term 'initially' for a reason. My guess would be that the Chrome team used the Foxit SDK to get it out the door quickly, then over time and with Foxit guidance, replaced parts with their home grown source. That's just a guess, though.