Paul Brossier wrote: > Kissfft (http://kissfft.sf.net) ships with a modified BSD license > that says: > > /* > Copyright (c) 2003-2004, Mark Borgerding > > All rights reserved. > > Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or > without modification, are permitted provided that the following > conditions are met: > > * Redistributions of source code must retain the above > copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following > disclaimer. > * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above > copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following > disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials > provided with the distribution. > * Neither the author nor the names of any contributors may be > used to endorse or promote products derived from this > software without specific prior written permission. > > THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND > CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, > INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF > MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE > DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS > BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, > EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED > TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, > DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON > ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, > OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY > OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE > POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. > > */ The text of this license is nearly identical to that in /usr/share/common-licenses/BSD, modulo the different copyright holder and the corresponding changes in the third clause and warranty disclaimer. Oddly, it seems that "name of the University" was replaced with "author" rathther than "name of the author"; I don't think that affects the DFSG-Freeness of the license. Other than the minor differences in wording, this looks like a standard 3-clause BSD license, which is DFSG-Free. > Are these modification DFSG compliant? Beside the "All rights > reserved", the third condition looks a bit odd to me, and could > clash with guideline #1: "may not restrict any party from selling > or giving away the software". The third condition is a non-endorsement clause, which has been discussed here previously; see the thread starting with Message-ID <20040512085432.GG18044@deadbeast.net>. These clauses are unnecessary and redundant in any sane legal jurisdiction (and the discussions didn't turn up any known insane ones), but are still considered DFSG-free. As for "All Rights Reserved", it is part of the copyright notice boilerplate rather than the license. Before the Berne Convention, that phrase was required in order to assert the full force of copyright law in many countries. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_rights_reserved has a good description of the reasons behind that phrase. - Josh Triplett
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