[License-review] For Legacy Approval: LBNL BSD

Smith, McCoy mccoy.smith at intel.com
Fri May 17 14:36:23 UTC 2019


I’m curious why, if this license has been used successfully for 16 years, OSI approval is needed at all? Has the lack of OSI approval suddenly resulted in prospective licensees declining to use code under this license?

Also, I think generally OSI should discourage licenses with text that is specific to a particular entity or entities, which is the case with clause (3).

> On May 17, 2019, at 6:48 AM, Kevin P. Fleming <kevin+osi at km6g.us> wrote:
> 
> The request is for "legacy" aprpoval, and if approved that will mean
> that usage of the license is discouraged, right?
> 
> On Fri, May 17, 2019 at 6:36 AM Bruce Perens via License-review
> <license-review at lists.opensource.org> wrote:
>> 
>> I always appreciate your comments, John, but I'd like to hear from Sebastian this time. Is this important enough to have yet another license adding to the license proliferation problem?
>> 
>>    Thanks
>> 
>>    Bruce
>> 
>>> On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 7:12 PM John Cowan <cowan at ccil.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Well, I suppose because of the default copyleft.  If you publish a derivative work and *don't* give it a specific license, it gets the LBNL BSD by default rather than the usual default, which is no-license.
>>> 
>>>> On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 7:11 PM Bruce Perens via License-review <license-review at lists.opensource.org> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Why do they still need to use this rather than the plain BSD license?
>>>> 
>>>> Thanks
>>>> 
>>>> Bruce
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> On Thu, May 16, 2019, 16:33 Sebastian Ainslie <sainslie at lbl.gov> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> The license:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Copyright (c) XXXX, The Regents of the University of California, through
>>>>> Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (subject to receipt of any required
>>>>> approvals from the U.S. Dept. of Energy). 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 University of California, Lawrence Berkeley
>>>>> National Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy 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 OWNER 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.
>>>>> 
>>>>> You are under no obligation whatsoever to provide any bug fixes, patches, or
>>>>> upgrades to the features, functionality or performance of the source code
>>>>> ("Enhancements") to anyone; however, if you choose to make your Enhancements
>>>>> available either publicly, or directly to Lawrence Berkeley National
>>>>> Laboratory, without imposing a separate written license agreement for such
>>>>> Enhancements, then you hereby grant the following license: a non-exclusive,
>>>>> royalty-free perpetual license to install, use, modify, prepare derivative
>>>>> works, incorporate into other computer software, distribute, and sublicense
>>>>> such Enhancements or derivative works thereof, in binary and source code
>>>>> form.
>>>>> ---------------------------
>>>>> The rationale:
>>>>> 
>>>>> The LBNL BSD has been in use since 2003. It has an ADDED paragraph at the
>>>>> end that makes it easier to accept improvements without a specific grant
>>>>> required.
>>>>> 



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