• Home
  • Line#
  • Scopes#
  • Navigate#
  • Raw
  • Download
1<html><head><title>Toybox License</title>
2<!--#include file="header.html" -->
3
4<h2>Toybox is released under the Zero Clause BSD license (SPDX: <a href=https://spdx.org/licenses/0BSD.html>0BSD</a>):</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>Zero clause BSD is a <a href=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain_equivalent_license>public domain equivalent</a> license.</p>
26
27<p>As with <a href=https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/>CC0</a>,
28<a href=http://unlicense.org>unlicense</a>, and <a href=http://wtfpl.net/>wtfpl</a>,
29the intent is to effectively place the licensed material into the public domain,
30which after decades of FUD (such as the time OSI's ex-lawyer compared
31<a href=https://web.archive.org/web/20160530090006/http://www.cod5.org/archive/>placing code into the public domain</a> to
32<a href=http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6225>abandoning trash by the
33side of a highway</a>) is considered somehow unsafe. But if some random third
34party
35<a href=https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/blob/master/libtomcrypt/LICENSE>takes
36public 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>
37
38<p>To work around this perception, the above license is the
39<a href=https://www.openbsd.org/policy.html>OpenBSD suggested template
40license</a>, <a href=https://github.com/landley/toybox/commit/ee86b1d8e25cb0ca9d418b33eb0dc5e7716ddc1e>minus the half sentence</a>
41requiring the license text be copied verbatim into derived works. If 2BSD is
42ok, then 0BSD should be ok, despite being equivalent to placing code in the
43public domain.</p>
44
45<p>Modifying the license in this way avoids the hole android toolbox fell into where
46<a href=https://github.com/android/platform_system_core/blob/fd4c6b0a3a25921a9fe24691a695d715aecb6afe/toolbox/NOTICE>33 copies of BSD license text</a>
47were concatenated together when copyright dates changed, or the strange
48solution the busybox developers used to resolve tension between GPLv2's "no
49additional restrictions" and BSD's "you must include this large hunk of text"
50by sticking the two licenses at
51<a href=http://git.busybox.net/busybox/tree/networking/ping.c?id=887a1ad57fe978cd320be358effbe66df8a068bf>opposite ends of the file</a> and hoping nobody
52noticed.</a>
53
54<p>Note: I asked <a href=https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/opensources/book/kirkmck.html>Kirk McKusick</a> for permission to call this a BSD license at
55a conference shortly before I started using the name,
56and <a href=0bsd-mckusick.txt>again in 2018</a>.</p>
57<!--#include file="footer.html" -->
58