BSD licenses

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BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses, imposing minimal restrictions on the redistribution of covered software.

Description

The original BSD license was used for its namesake, the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), a Unix-like operating system.

The original version has since been revised and its descendants are more properly termed modified BSD licenses.

Two variants of the license, the New BSD License/Modified BSD License (3-clause), and the Simplified BSD License/FreeBSD License (2-clause) have been verified as GPL-compatible free software licenses by the Free Software Foundation, and have been vetted as open source licenses by the Open Source Initiative

The original, 4-clause license has not been accepted as an open source license and, although the original is considered to be a free software license by the FSF, the FSF does not consider it to be compatible with the GPL due to the advertising clause.

Copyleft licenses

Copyleft licenses are different: they have reciprocity share-alike requirements.

See also

External links