From 3d5ee802321e1b1b3b5d149aae2b8765a06efb21 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Rob Landley Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 15:19:11 -0500 Subject: Fluff up explanation of why 0BSD license for SPDX submission. --- www/license.html | 32 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--- 1 file changed, 29 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) (limited to 'www') 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 @@ Toybox License -

Toybox is released under the following "zero clause" BSD license:

, +

Toybox is released under the following "zero clause" BSD license:

Copyright (C) 2006 by Rob Landley <rob@landley.net> @@ -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.

-

You can treat it as a license if you like, but this variant is functionally -equivalent to placing the code in the public domain.

+

The text of the above license is included in the file LICENSE in the source.

+

Why 0BSD?

+ +

As with CC0, +unlicense, and wtfpl, +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 +placing code into the public domain to +abandoning trash by the +side of a highway) is considered somehow unsafe. But if some random third +party +takes +public domain code and slaps some other license on it, then it's fine.

+ +

To work around this perception, the above license is a standard 2-clause BSD +license minus the half sentence +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.

+ +

Modifying the license in this way avoids the hole android toolbox fell into where +33 copies of BSD license text +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 +opposite ends of the file and hoping nobody +noticed. -- cgit v1.2.3