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BSD licenses are popular and used in many projects, ranking sixth among the most popular licenses on Github in 2015. Some of the major open source software that still uses BSD are FreeBSD, DragonFly BSD, Google`s Bionic, and Darwin (which forms the basis of macOS). Some Windows components also use BSD-licensed software, such as TCP/IP protocols. BSD licenses are a low-restriction license type for open source software that has no redistribution requirements. A BSD 3 clause license replaced the BSD 4 clauses license because the advertising clause had become controversial in the previous version. In particular, the advertising clause was incompatible with the GNU General Public License (GPL), which led the university to publish the New BSD License (or 3-Clause BSD License) in 1999. Any user or team may use the BSD license by copying the original text and updating the information to reflect the owners, organizations, and year of copyright. There are no additional license fees. The Free Software Foundation, which refers to the license as the FreeBSD license, states that it is compatible with the GNU GPL. In addition, the FSF encourages users to be specific when referring to the license by name (i.e., it is not simply referred to as “a BSD license” or “BSD style”), as is the case with the modified/new BSD license to avoid confusion with the original BSD license.
[8] The advertising clause was removed from the license text in the official BSD on July 22, 1999 by William Hoskins, director of the Office of Technology Licensing at UC Berkeley. [4] [7] Other BSD distributions have removed the clause, but many similar clauses remain in BSD derivative code from other sources and unrelated code that uses a derivative license. An even more simplified version was used, which is best known for its use in FreeBSD. [9] It was already in use on April 29, 1999 [10] and probably much earlier. The main difference between it and the new BSD license (3 clauses) is that it omits the non-approval clause. The FreeBSD version of the license also adds another disclaimer of the views and opinions expressed in the software,[11] although this is not common in other projects. Today, this original license is sometimes referred to as “BSD-old” or “4-Clause BSD”. Due to the different variants of the BSD license, it is advisable to determine which license is explicitly valid for the software. The terms of the new BSD license (or 3-clause BSD license) require users: In the 1980s, the university created an operating system (OS) based on the original UNIX developed by Bell Labs.
The Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) operating system has been widely adopted by workstation vendors, with companies developing proprietary variants. The BSD license used in the operating system allows source code to be freely shared and distributed at a time when copyrighted software had become the norm. After answering your top 10 questions about the GPL, Apache 2.0 license, Ms-PL, and CDDL, today we`re going to answer your most important questions about BSD licensing. The BSD license is the 5th most used license based on our research report on published open source projects. However, due to a misunderstanding of the license (and in some cases, even with malicious intent), developers have started replacing the confirmation text above by adding their own names or the names of their organizations. This process should be used for all software imports, not just those that require verification by the core team. The mere existence of a new version does not justify importing software into the source code or ported ports. The FreeBSD project discusses the benefits of BSD-style licenses for enterprises and commercial use cases due to their license compatibility with proprietary licenses and overall flexibility, and explains that, unlike copyleft licenses, BSD-style licenses are only “minimum restrictions on future behavior” and not “legal time bombs.” [17] The BSD license allows for proprietary use and allows for the integration of licensed software into proprietary products. Hardware-based works may be released under a proprietary license as closed-source software that allows common commercial uses between them. FOSS licenses come in two main classes, namely copyleft or BSD licenses and permissive licenses. Permissive licenses (which include the 3-clause BSD license) impose minimum restrictions on how other users can modify, use, or redistribute the source code (primarily only attribution and requiring compensation). An important note: open source licenses usually have outdated advertising clauses.
So, if you find code under a license with an advertising clause, you should ask yourself if it is up to date and secure. Importing new licensed software other than the BSD license and BSD-type licenses (as defined below) requires the prior consent of the FreeBSD core team. Import requests must include the following: If you licensed your original BSD component, it is not compatible with gnu GPL code. Carefully consider compatibility issues when you combine them. The BSD 3 clause license has two main requirements for those who want to use the licensed code. They are actually the same as those of the MIT license. If you plan to copy, modify, or distribute BSD-licensed code, you must specify the following: These two licenses are very similar, with the main exception of the non-approval clause of BSD 3, which prohibits the advertising of derivative works using the name of the license or its authors. In addition, the language of the MIT license is simpler and shorter. The modified or new BSD license (or BSD 3 clause) is the same as BSD-2, but with an additional clause prohibiting the use of author names to support or promote software-related products. .