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authorRob Landley <rob@landley.net>2015-06-15 15:19:11 -0500
committerRob Landley <rob@landley.net>2015-06-15 15:19:11 -0500
commit3d5ee802321e1b1b3b5d149aae2b8765a06efb21 (patch)
tree0c38e74e132c99f3c9c24eb2dba607bb120c899c /www
parent34434df7c1b919f658ee2db75358adbe5647bd76 (diff)
downloadtoybox-3d5ee802321e1b1b3b5d149aae2b8765a06efb21.tar.gz
Fluff up explanation of why 0BSD license for SPDX submission.
Diffstat (limited to 'www')
-rwxr-xr-xwww/license.html32
1 files changed, 29 insertions, 3 deletions
diff --git a/www/license.html b/www/license.html
index 5fcb94f4..15104ed6 100755
--- a/www/license.html
+++ b/www/license.html
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
<html><head><title>Toybox License</title>
<!--#include file="header.html" -->
-<h2>Toybox is released under the following "zero clause" BSD license:</h2>,
+<h2>Toybox is released under the following "zero clause" BSD license:</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>Copyright (C) 2006 by Rob Landley &lt;rob@landley.net&gt;
@@ -18,7 +18,33 @@ ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF
OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.</p>
</blockquote>
-<p>You can treat it as a license if you like, but this variant is functionally
-equivalent to placing the code in the public domain.</p>
+<p>The text of the above license is included in the file LICENSE in the source.</p>
+<h2>Why 0BSD?</h2>
+
+<p>As with <a href=https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/>CC0</a>,
+<a href=http://unlicense.org>unlicense</a>, and <a href=http://wtfpl.net/>wtfpl</a>,
+the intent is to place the licensed material into the public domain,
+which after decades of FUD (such as the time OSI's ex-lawyer compared
+<a href=http://www.cod5.org/archive/>placing code into the public domain</a> to
+<a href=http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6225>abandoning trash by the
+side of a highway</a>) is considered somehow unsafe. But if some random third
+party
+<a href=https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/blob/master/libtomcrypt/LICENSE>takes
+public domain code</a> and slaps <a href=http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/gnuzip/gnuzip-25/gzip/gzip.c>some other license on it</a>, then it's fine.</p>
+
+<p>To work around this perception, the above license is a standard 2-clause BSD
+license <a href=https://github.com/landley/toybox/commit/ee86b1d8e25cb0ca9d418b33eb0dc5e7716ddc1e>minus the half sentence</a>
+requiring text copied verbatim into derived works. If 2BSD is
+ok, the 0BSD should be ok, despite being equivalent to placing code in the
+public domain.</p>
+
+<p>Modifying the license in this way avoids the hole android toolbox fell into where
+<a href=https://github.com/android/platform_system_core/blob/fd4c6b0a3a25921a9fe24691a695d715aecb6afe/toolbox/NOTICE>33 copies of BSD license text</a>
+were concatenated together when copyright dates changed, or the strange
+solution the busybox developers used to resolve tension between GPLv2's "no
+additional restrictions" and BSD's "you must include this large hunk of text"
+by sticking the two licenses at
+<a href=http://git.busybox.net/busybox/tree/networking/ping.c?id=887a1ad57fe978cd320be358effbe66df8a068bf>opposite ends of the file</a> and hoping nobody
+noticed.</a>
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