BSD License as Template

The BSD license has been through several revisions. The current version discussed in this chapter has been redesigned to work as a template appropriate for software other than the original Berkeley Software Distribution. A copy of the current version of the BSD license is shown in the Appendices.

When a licensor says "I license my software under the BSD license," that licensor is not suggesting that he or she is or represents the University of California, or that the licensed software is or is derived from the original Berkeley Software Distribution. Instead, this sentence means only that the license is in the form of the BSD license, inserting the licensor's own name as the name of the licensor and an original copyright notice instead of the copyright notice for that other university's software.

If you use software that purports to be under the BSD license, look for the license itself somewhere in the source code of the software. The license should be complete, with all blanks filled in. That text is the authoritative version of your BSD license, not the version shown in the Appendices.