[License-discuss] Tweaking the BSD license template

[Luis Villa]

I'm a little uncomfortable touching the "historic" licenses, but given how
many variants there are of this already, and the genuine practical costs of
treating these differently, I think the change is warranted, and I have
made it. Thanks, Gerv and Engel.

Luis


On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 8:39 AM, Engel Nyst <engel.nyst at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 11/07/2013 12:35 PM, Gervase Markham wrote:
>
>> I want to have another go at gaining consensus on making tweaks to the
>> OSI's presentation of the 3-clause BSD licence
>> <http://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause> to reduce license
>> proliferation in the long term.
>>
>>
> Thank you! I also hope this will reduce time consumed unnecessarily for
> projects.
>
>
>  Proposal: replace "<ORGANIZATION>" with "copyright holder" on the OSI's
>> 3-Clause page, and update the surrounding text to explain the situation.
>> That update would be in a similar vein to the existing explanatory
>> sentence:
>>
>>    "In the original BSD license, both occurrences of the phrase
>>    "COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS" in the disclaimer read "REGENTS
>>    AND CONTRIBUTORS".
>>
>> I would argue that the above sentence also establishes a precedent that
>> it's OK for the OSI copy of a historical license to be genericized in
>> this non-parameterized way.
>>
>>
> I think the page would look in practice like the following text. Written
> quickly to visualize the proposal, in case it helps.
>
>
> <OWNER> = Regents of University of California
> <YEAR> = 1998
>
> In the original BSD license, the occurrence of "copyright holder" in the
> 3rd clause read "ORGANIZATION", placeholder for "University of California".
> Both occurrences of the phrase "COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS" in the
> disclaimer read "REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS".
>
> Here is the license template:
>
> Copyright (c) <YEAR>, <OWNER>
>  All rights reserved.
>
> Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
> modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
>
> 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice,
> this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
>
> 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
> notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
> documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
>
> 3. Neither the name of the copyright holder nor the names of its
> contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this
> software without specific prior written permission.
>
> THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS
> IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
> THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
> PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR
> CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL,
> EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
> PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS;
> OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY,
> WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR
> OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF
> ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
>
>
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