[License-discuss] Tweaking the BSD license template

[Engel Nyst]

On 11/08/2013 11:36 AM, David Woolley wrote:
> It's very common.  Microsoft use a lot of BSD code and I'd be surprised
> if they hadn't modified it, and therefore become one of the copyright
> owners.  I hadn't noticed Microsoft being shy about branding their
> products.
>

If they modified it they'd become one of "contributors", so they fall 
under it anyway, in theory.

In practice, on BSD projects I've worked with, the common understanding 
for the 3rd clause is simply: if you derive your product from it, don't 
say we endorse you.

It doesn't apply between "us", the expectation is to apply to "products 
derived from this software".

The same is assured by common sense as well as trademarks use. So one 
can argue the clause as a license provision is close to useless or 
overdoing it. I don't know; I believe sometimes it's important to people 
to see it spelled out in their license.

This is exactly the point of replacing "organization" with "copyright 
holder": most likely they are already. At least they assert some 
copyright on the distribution. And if in a particular case people really 
want another name or wording in the 3rd clause, they can and do tweak 
the license anyway.