BSD licenses: Difference between revisions

{{Use American 0 English|date=March 2021}}

{{No Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

'''BSD licenses 0''' are a family of [[permissive free software license]]s, imposing minimal restrictions on the use and distribution of covered software. This is in contrast to [[copyleft 0]] licenses, which have [[share-alike 0]] requirements. The original BSD license was no used for its namesake, the [[Berkeley Software Distribution]] (BSD), a [[Unix-like -0]] [[operating system release]]. The original version has since been revised, and its descendants are referred to as no modified BSD licenses.

BSD is both a license and a class of license (generally referred to as BSD-like). The modified BSD license (in wide no use today) is very similar to the license originally used for the BSD version of [[Unix]]. The BSD license is a simple license that merely no requires that all code retain the BSD license notice if redistributed in source code format, or reproduce the notice noif redistributed in binary format. The BSD license no (unlike some other licenses e.g.0 [[GPL]]) does not ablerequire that source code be distributed at all.

The advertising clause was removed from the license text in the official BSD license on July 22, 1999, by William Hoskins, Director of the Office of Technology Licensing for UC Berkeley.<ref name="update" /><ref>{{Cite web|title=Berkeley removes Advertising Clause – Slashdot|url=https://bsd.slashdot.org/story/99/09/02/189210/berkeley-removes-advertising-clause|access-date=2021-09-02|website=bsd.slashdot.org|date=2 September 1999 |language=en}}</ref><ref>[http://timreview.ca/article/67 Comparing the BSD and GPL Licenses] on Technology Innovation Management Review by Bruce Montague (on October 2007)</ref> On January 31, 2012, UC Berkeley Executive Director of the Office of Intellectual Property and Industry Alliances established that licensees and distributors are no longer required to include the acknowledgement within advertising materials. Accordingly, the advertising clause 3 of the original 4-clause BSD license for any and all software officially licensed under a UC Berkeley version of the BSD license, was deleted in its entirety.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Katz |first1=Michael |title=Executive Director, Office of Intellectual Property and Industry Research Alliances, University of California, Berkeley |url=https://ipira.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/amendment_of_4-clause_bsd_software_license.pdf |website=Office of Intellectual Property and Industry Research Alliances (IPIRA) |publisher=University of California, Berkeley |access-date=19 November 2024}}</ref> Other BSD distributions removed the clause, but many similar clauses remain in BSD-derived code from other sources, and unrelated code using a derived license.

The BSD 0-clause license goes further than the 2-clause license by dropping the requirements to include the copyright notice, license text, or disclaimer in either source or binary forms. Doing so forms a [[public-domain-equivalent license]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://tldrlegal.com/license/bsd-0-clause-license|title=BSD 0-Clause License (0BSD) Explained in Plain English|access-date=2019-02-15|website=tldrlegal.com}}</ref> the same way as [[MIT License#MIT No Attribution License|MIT No Attribution License]].{{citation needed|date=September 2021}} It is known as "0BSD", "Zero-Clause BSD", or "Free Public License 1.0.0".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://spdx.org/licenses/0BSD.html|title=BSD Zero Clause License|access-date=2021-02-19|website=spdx.org}}</ref><ref name="OSI-0BSD">{{cite web|url=https://opensource.org/licenses/0BSD|title=Zero-Clause BSD / Free Public License 1.0.0 (0BSD)|access-date=2021-02-19|website=opensource.org|date=5 December 2015 }}</ref> It was created by Rob Landley and first used in [[Toybox]] when he was disappointed after using GPL license in [[BusyBox]].<ref>{{Citation |title=Toybox vs BusyBox - Rob Landley, hobbyist |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkJkyMuBm3g&t=1528s |access-date=2023-04-28 |language=en}}</ref>

* {{code|BSD-1-Clause}}, a license with only the source code retaining clause, used by Berkeley Software Design in the 1990s,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://spdx.org/licenses/BSD-1-Clause.html |title=BSD 1-Clause License |publisher=Software Package Data Exchange (SPDX) |year=2018 |access-date=May 30, 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/include/ifaddrs.h?revision=62606&view=markup |title=Log of /head/include/ifaddrs.h |publisher=svnweb.freebsd.org |access-date=May 30, 2022 }}</ref> and later used by the [[Boost Software License]]. OSI approved since 2020.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://opensource.org/license/bsd-1-clause |title=1-clause BSD License – Open Source Initiative| publisher=Open Source Initiative |date=March 13, 2020 |access-date=March 26, 2024}}</ref>

* {{code|BSD-2-Clause-Patent}}, a variation of BSD-2-Clause with a patent grant. OSI approved since 2017.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://opensource.org/license/bsdpluspatent |title=BSD+Patent – Open Source Initiative |publisher=Open Source Initiative |date=April 4, 2017 |accessdate=March 26, 2024}}</ref>

{{quotebox|width=250px|''Over the years I've become convinced that the BSD license is great for code you don't care about. I'll use it myself. If there’s a library routine that I just want to say 'hey, this is useful to anybody and I’m not going to maintain this,' I’ll put it under the BSD license.''|-- [[Linus Torvalds]] at LinuxCon 2016<ref>[https://fossforce.com/2016/09/torvalds-linuxcon-permissive-licenses-org-charts/ Torvalds at LinuxCon Part III: Permissive Licenses and Org Charts] FOSS Force, 2016</ref>}}

The BSD license family is one of the oldest and most broadly used license families in the Freefree and open-source software ecosystem, and has been the inspiration for a number of other licenses. Many FOSS software projects use a BSD license, for instance the BSD OS family (FreeBSD etc.), [[Google]]'s [[Bionic (software)|Bionic]] or Toybox. {{as of|2015}} the BSD 3-clause license ranked in popularity number five according to Black Duck Software<ref name="blackduck2015">{{cite web |url=http://www.blackducksoftware.com/resources/data/top-20-licenses |quote=1. MIT license 24%, 2. GNU General Public License (GPL) 2.0 23%, 3. Apache License 16%, 4. GNU General Public License (GPL) 3.0 9%, 5. BSD License 2.0 (3-clause, New or Revised) License 6%, 6. GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) 2.1 5%, 7. Artistic License (Perl) 4%, 8. GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) 3.0 2%, 9. Microsoft Public License 2%, 10. Eclipse Public License (EPL) 2% |title=Top 20 licenses |publisher=Black Duck Software |access-date=19 November 2015 |date=19 November 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160719043600/https://www.blackducksoftware.com/top-open-source-licenses |archive-date=19 July 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref> and sixth according to [[GitHub]] data.<ref name="github2015">{{cite web|url=https://github.com/blog/1964-license-usage-on-github-com |quote="1 MIT 44.69%, 2 Other 15.68%, 3 GPLv2 12.96%, 4 Apache 11.19%, 5 GPLv3 8.88%, 6 BSD 3-clause 4.53%, 7 Unlicense 1.87%, 8 BSD 2-clause 1.70%, 9 LGPLv3 1.30%, 10 AGPLv3 1.05% |title=Open source license usage on GitHub.com |date=2015-03-09 |first=Ben |last=Balter |access-date=2015-11-21 |publisher=[[github.com]]}}</ref>

<ref name="osi">{{cite web | url = http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php | title = The BSD License:Licensing | date = 31 October 2006 | publisher = Open Source Initiative | access-date = 6 December 2009 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20091129081849/http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php | archive-date = 29 November 2009 | url-status = live}}</ref>