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BSD / Permissive Licences
BSD licences (2-Clause / 3-Clause) belong to the academic licence family. They are extremely short, easy to understand, and require only attribution of the original authors.
Core Concept
Minimal restrictions: code may be used, modified, and sold with almost no limitations. There is no copyleft. Similar licences include the ISC licence and the Beerware licence.
Assessment
- For organisations: No issues whatsoever. No risk to proprietary IP. Commonly used for base libraries and operating system components (e.g. FreeBSD, macOS kernel).
- For OSS authors: Focus on maximum reach and influence, rather than protecting the community's work.