toybox/www/license.html
<<
>>
Prefs
   1<html><head><title>Toybox License</title>
   2<!--#include file="header.html" -->
   3
   4<h2>Toybox is released under the following "zero clause" BSD license:</h2>
   5
   6<blockquote>
   7<p>Copyright (C) 2006 by Rob Landley &lt;rob@landley.net&gt;
   8
   9<p>Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any
  10purpose with or without fee is hereby granted.</p>
  11
  12<p>THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES
  13WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
  14MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR
  15ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
  16WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN
  17ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF
  18OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.</p>
  19</blockquote>
  20
  21<p>The text of the above license is included in the file LICENSE in the source.</p>
  22
  23<h2>Why 0BSD?</h2>
  24
  25<p>As with <a href=https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/>CC0</a>,
  26<a href=http://unlicense.org>unlicense</a>, and <a href=http://wtfpl.net/>wtfpl</a>,
  27the intent is to place the licensed material into the public domain,
  28which after decades of FUD (such as the time OSI's ex-lawyer compared
  29<a href=http://www.cod5.org/archive/>placing code into the public domain</a> to
  30<a href=http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6225>abandoning trash by the
  31side of a highway</a>) is considered somehow unsafe. But if some random third
  32party
  33<a href=https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/blob/master/libtomcrypt/LICENSE>takes
  34public 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>
  35
  36<p>To work around this perception, the above license is a standard 2-clause BSD
  37license <a href=https://github.com/landley/toybox/commit/ee86b1d8e25cb0ca9d418b33eb0dc5e7716ddc1e>minus the half sentence</a>
  38requiring text copied verbatim into derived works. If 2BSD is
  39ok, the 0BSD should be ok, despite being equivalent to placing code in the
  40public domain.</p>
  41
  42<p>Modifying the license in this way avoids the hole android toolbox fell into where
  43<a href=https://github.com/android/platform_system_core/blob/fd4c6b0a3a25921a9fe24691a695d715aecb6afe/toolbox/NOTICE>33 copies of BSD license text</a>
  44were concatenated together when copyright dates changed, or the strange
  45solution the busybox developers used to resolve tension between GPLv2's "no
  46additional restrictions" and BSD's "you must include this large hunk of text"
  47by sticking the two licenses at
  48<a href=http://git.busybox.net/busybox/tree/networking/ping.c?id=887a1ad57fe978cd320be358effbe66df8a068bf>opposite ends of the file</a> and hoping nobody
  49noticed.</a>
  50<!--#include file="footer.html" -->
  51