Talk:BSD licenses

message: * 145.254.233.213 05:02, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled discussion 2

message: SteveAtlanta 01:47, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The other licenses don't make the distinction and talk about 'the software'. There were also two versions of the MIT license I think, one that talks about 'software' and one that talks about 'software and the supporting documentation'. Oh well. If my understanding of copyright is correct, it is in fact the two-clause and three-clause versions of the BSD license that are equivalent, because  there is nothing else granting special rights to use the authors name as an endorsement anyway (but I'd love to be corrected on this). squell 19:37, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled discussion 3

message: so, what is the difference between giving something in public domain vs licencing it under the BSD licence? The article only says its 'closer' to this in comparison with the GPL, but doesnt explain further. --Aryah 16:53, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Public domain software does not have a copyright holder. BSD software does. This also means that code in public domain can be taken by anyone, without notice and without giving credit and put in any software with any license. Code released under the BSD license can be also similarly manipulated but credit is due to the author (clauses 1 and 2 in any edition of the BSD license). Also the author of a BSD licensed piece of code retains the right to change his mind about the license of his piece of code, and also license it(modified or not) to other entities under different conditions. Something under public domain stays public domain forever and, not having a owner, cannot be put in another state. 80.74.176.55 (talk) 13:04, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: diff v public domain?

message: No, the document was updated by the GNU project on multiple occasions after the license was changed by the University of California in 1999.  Additionally, the problem persists since some software is licensed with the original BSD license, including NetBSD.
:NetBSD switched to a two-clause BSD license (not unlike what FreeBSD uses, but I don't think NetBSD has the additional disclaimer at the bottom of the license), but I'd imagine that like most free and open-source operating systems, there's code the project doesn't hold the copyright for and thus couldn't change the license of, so there's probably still code under the original BSD license out there (especially since it doesn't have an option to use a newer version of the license like the GPL, PHP License, etc.). --Evice (talk) 16:43, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Isn't the GNU document, "The BSD License Problem", outdated? 

message: And if you want to release a program as non-copylefted free software, please don't use the advertising clause. Instead of copying the BSD license from some released package--which might still have the old version of the license in it--please copy the license from X11.
You can also help spread awareness of the issue by not using the term "BSD-style", and not saying "the BSD license" which implies there is only one. You see, when people refer to all non-copyleft free software licenses as "BSD-style licenses", some new free software developer who wants to use a non-copyleft free software license might take for granted that the place to get it is from BSD. He or she might copy the license with the advertising clause, not by specific intention, just by chance.
If you would like to cite one specific example of a non-copyleft license, and you have no particular preference, please pick an example which has no particular problem. For instance, if you talk about "X11-style licenses", you will encourage people to copy the license from X11, which avoids the advertising clause for certain, rather than take a risk by randomly chosing one of the two BSD licenses.
When you want to refer specifically to one of the BSD licenses, please always state which one: the "original BSD license" or the "revised BSD license".
I think, X11 should be mentioned in this article, and FSF's point of view and license naming policy should be reflected here as well.
: I think too. I came here after a search on forums software on wp (like phpBB, punBB, etc...). I get the page Comparison_of_Internet_forum_software. Some softwares are indicated to have a BSD license but it's very hard to know at the first look if that's the revised BSD license or the old with the advertising clause. At least, it should be possible to include enough information such as "X11-style (revised BSD license)" or something else to avoid confusion for users. Regards. 193.253.141.80 14:08, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Free Software Foundation about BSD licenses naming 

message: FreeBSD also uses a 2-clause license with an additional statement at the end that the views of contributors are not the official views of the FreeBSD Project.
Does this sentence have any grounding in fact at all?  The sample license in the FreeBSD source tree appears to contain no text along these lines: Sample BSD license in FreeBSD source tree.  This license file has not been changed in six years.
:Yes, it does: http://www.freebsd.org/copyright/freebsd-license.html --Mike 18:01, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  FreeBSD additions to 2-clause version? 

message: I removed the "move to wikisource" tag on the actual license text. Reproducing the (short) text here is, IMHO, as appropriate as having a picture of a person in an article about that person. It should stay. --Alvestrand 18:53, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. None of the versions of the BSD licenses are very long, so they don't make the page much longer (as opposed to longer licenses such as the GPL or Apache License). --Evice (talk) 16:48, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Terms belong here, not on wikisource 

message: The OSI website and this article both reference the New BSD license, but they don't mention what's new about it.  What's the difference? MrZaiustalk 07:03, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It lacks the advertising clause of the original BSD license (clause 3 in the text given on the main page). The Free Software Foundation refers to it as the modified BSD license for the same reason. Both organizations are just distinguishing it from the original version. --Evice (talk) 16:46, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: New BSD License?

message: The article claims the "use of BSD networking code in Microsoft products" but where are the corresponding documents? The following discussion disproves this claim: http://www.linuxsa.org.au/pipermail/linuxsa/2004-February/065783.html
So let us get the documents or delete this claim!
Ento (talk) 22:16, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The winsock.h file contains text that disagrees with the random mailing-list comment which you found:
/* WINSOCK.H--definitions to be used with the WINSOCK.DLL   
 * Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.   
 *   
 * This header file corresponds to version 1.1 of the Windows Sockets specifica>
 *   
 * This file includes parts which are Copyright (c) 1982-1986 Regents   
 * of the University of California.  All rights reserved.  The   
 * Berkeley Software License Agreement specifies the terms and   
 * conditions for redistribution.   
 *   
 */
So it's not as simple as that Tedickey (talk) 22:37, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  BSD code in Microsoft products 

message: Due to a lack of sources to establish independent notability for William Hoskins, I propose that the entirety of the article (one sentence) be merge into its own section in this article. I can find no non-trivial sources that would help expand the Hoskins article; all of them seem to relate directly to this and are not substantial enough for a full and neutral biography on this individual. The article passed VFD (the old school version of AFD) on the basis that it would grow and be expanded - that was three and a half years ago, and nothing has happened since. If there is consensus to do so, or if no one comments within a week, I will undertake the merge myself. Cheers, CP 21:36, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see any relevant hits with google (unless someone knows of some other detail where he might be notable, there's nothing to use) Tedickey (talk) 21:53, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger proposal 

message: The article doesn't say, and I haven't found information on this online. Is the FreeBSD license compatible with the Apache License 2.0? I'm assuming it is. A related question: What would be a good license that is compatible with both Apache and the LGPL? Joseph449008 (talk) 17:11, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, for example you can take BSD code, modify it and release it under Apache 2.0, or the GPL, while leaving the copyright notices in place. --Pot (talk) 13:09, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:   Compatible with Apache License 2.0? 

message: The citation links to the FSF info about various licenses in this article are borken. They should point to anchors on this page: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html, such as http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#FreeBSD and so on. 21:43, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I fixed this a while ago, but figured it should be noted here. ~ 10nitro (talk) 22:45, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Broken links 

message: Way back in October 2010, an IP added the  tag to this article, and provided a reason in the edit summery, but not the article itself.  I have added this.  The issue is that the infoboxes overlap with the license text when the window is too narrow, and always overlap with the <pre> boxes.  I am the editor that is originally responsible for that.  I agree that this is a problem, but do not know the proper solution.  I decided that 1000px wasn't too sharp of a requirement, which is what is needed for most of the licenses.  For the 2-clause license, I added  which bumps the license text down.  This increases the whitespace too much for the others. ~ 10nitro (talk) 21:16, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I fixed it using the  tag. ~ 10nitro (talk) 21:35, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleanup tag -- wikimarkup 

message: I'm commenting out the claim here.
That statement is highly POV and dubious:
* Cf. USL v. BSDi.
* USL v. BSDi was settled out of court 1993 after the judge expressed doubt as to the validity of USL's intellectual property.
* There were disputed files. The actual copyright status of those files was never determined in court, because "AT&T"(USL) chose to settle as they had themselves been distributing UC Berkeley files and had significant exposure to counterclaims. It was never determined whether those files which UC Berkeley et. al. stopped distributing as part of the (previously) secret settlement were actually infringing on any USL rights at all. USL claimed they were. The view that actual AT&T licenses applied is just a partisan POV. The opposing partisan POV is that UC Berkeley's claims were a lot stronger and that a settlement was reached on terms that were very favourable to the university's interests but allowed USL/AT&T to save face and avoid exposure to UC Berkeley's strong counterclaims. Neither of these POV statements probably should be in this particular article.
31.16.123.164 (talk) 11:57, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The topic could be improved by providing a suitable tie-in to the discussion of the court case, and how it relates to the license. TEDickey (talk) 12:02, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Good find 31.16.123.164. As for working the court case into the article, I am not sure how relevant this copyright lawsuit is to a article about the BSD license. That said, The Proprietary software licenses compatibility section do need a rewrite. Its unsourced, gives a very incomplete view of how the BSD license compatibility is, and the title should most likely be changed to license compatibility so it can cover other licenses than proprietary ones.Belorn (talk) 14:18, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dubious POV claims 

message: The disclaimer does not appear in the source, [see online], but only on the website. My feeling is that source code must prevail. genium ⟨✉⟩ 17:17, 26 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  FreeBSD License 

message: Hi everybody,
I try to upgrade the hungarian BSD licenses article. To do this I need a very good understanding of every part of the BSD licence text, however as I am neither a native english, nor a lawyer, I got some difficulties. I hope you can help me.
First thing that I don't understand is the as is from the following text: THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY <COPYRIGHT HOLDER> AS IS
Can someone explain what is the meaning of as is in this sentence?
The second thing, wihtin I'm not sure is understanding the copyright holder notion. Who is the copyright holder when I create a program and someone modify my software. I mean who is the copyright holder of the second software. Still me, who firstly created it, or the second programmer who upgraded it with own effort? - fektom  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fektom (talk • contribs) 18:51, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm pretty sure that it constitutes a combined work created (with permission) from material copyrighted by both parties. -- thomas.hori (talk) 15:04, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

text: As is is a legal term meaning you take whatever you're getting in whatever condition it happens to be in, as it is, with no warranty to fix anything.  There's a Wikipedia article on it: As is. TJRC (talk) 20:45, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trial for a better understanding of BSD licence 

message: I work at a company where we use lots of open source software, but our legal people have to approve it first. We recently asked to use Facebook's osquery library, which has a kind of BSD license, but it was rejected with a warning that we must not use any Facebook software with this license. It's tricky because at first glance, it's a standard BSD 3-clause with a little text file called "PATENTS" that seems to be a patent grant. Patent grants are common, for example the Apache license has a "Grant of Patent License" paragraph that basically says they won't sue you if you don't sue them. But after studying the fine print our lawyers concluded that Facebook's terms have a very different legal effect, essentially giving them a one-sided ability to revoke the license for all sorts of trivial reasons unrelated to osquery or its patents. This is because of broad words like "other action" and "any party relating to the software". To be clear our lawyers had no problem approving other software that has the BSD license without this file, and they are fine with the Apache license.
You can find the full text of Facebook's PATENTS file here:  https://github.com/facebook/osquery/blob/master/PATENTS
I looked around on the web for other analysis, but all the opinions I found are from people who are not lawyers. I did find a forum comment saying "I work at Google, where many are sad to not be able to use recent Facebook code" which suggests that Google's lawyers came to the same conclusion.  In forum discussions people consistently assume that this PATENTS file is a typical patent grant, which makes me wonder whether Facebook intentionally crafted it to be misleading. (?)
Facebook is a major industry player that has applied this PATENTS file to numerous open source libraries, e.g. see here for many examples. Should we add a section to the BSD Licenses article to distinguish the conventional BSD variants from Facebook's weird modification? It seems significant enough to call out.  Inputjunkie (talk) 07:19, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for researching this, but Wikipedia's Verifiability policy requires reliable sources. Wikipedia shouldn't cover it until better sources appear; forums/comment threads do not qualify. -- intgr [talk] 08:12, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add a section for Facebook's custom BSD license? 

message: The text here on Wikipedia for the 3-clause license (and maybe others) does not match the text at OSI. The OSI version doesn't not use the place holder for "<organization>" or "<COPYRIGHT HOLDER>" Can't seem to find an "official" copy of the BSD licenses. Anybody know what's going on here? Jason Quinn (talk) 20:39, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  3-clause license seems incorrect 

message: is here FYI. -- Yae4 (talk) 18:31, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[WP:RSN]] Discussion of a source cited in this article 

message: In the section Zero-Clause BSD license I was not able to find the source about the publication date "2013". Is anybody able to confirm that? Bozz (talk) 20:26, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  BSD Zero Clause License: 2013 

message: *BSD licenses → BSD license  
Per WP:SINGULAR and WP:PLURAL, the title should be in singular form since this article refers to the concept of a BSD license, not a list of such BSD licenses. Aitraintheeditorandgamer (talk) 11:50, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move