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  1. <html><head><title>Toybox License</title>
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  3. <h2>Toybox is released under the Zero Clause BSD license (SPDX: <a href=https://spdx.org/licenses/0BSD.html>0BSD</a>):</h2>
  4. <blockquote>
  5. <p>Copyright (C) 2006 by Rob Landley &lt;rob@landley.net&gt;
  6. <p>Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any
  7. purpose with or without fee is hereby granted.</p>
  8. <p>THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES
  9. WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
  10. MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR
  11. ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
  12. WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN
  13. ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF
  14. OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.</p>
  15. </blockquote>
  16. <p>The text of the above license is included in the file LICENSE in the source.</p>
  17. <h2>Why 0BSD?</h2>
  18. <p>Zero clause BSD is a <a href=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain_equivalent_license>public domain equivalent</a> license.</p>
  19. <p>As with <a href=https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/>CC0</a>,
  20. <a href=http://unlicense.org>unlicense</a>, and <a href=http://wtfpl.net/>wtfpl</a>,
  21. the intent is to effectively place the licensed material into the public domain,
  22. which after decades of FUD (such as the time OSI's ex-lawyer compared
  23. <a href=https://web.archive.org/web/20160530090006/http://www.cod5.org/archive/>placing code into the public domain</a> to
  24. <a href=http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6225>abandoning trash by the
  25. side of a highway</a>) is considered somehow unsafe. But if some random third
  26. party
  27. <a href=https://github.com/mkj/dropbear/blob/master/libtomcrypt/LICENSE>takes
  28. public 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>
  29. <p>To work around this perception, the above license is the
  30. <a href=https://www.openbsd.org/policy.html>OpenBSD suggested template
  31. license</a>, <a href=https://github.com/landley/toybox/commit/ee86b1d8e25cb0ca9d418b33eb0dc5e7716ddc1e>minus the half sentence</a>
  32. requiring the license text be copied verbatim into derived works. If 2BSD is
  33. ok, then 0BSD should be ok, despite being equivalent to placing code in the
  34. public domain.</p>
  35. <p>Modifying the license in this way avoids the hole android toolbox fell into where
  36. <a href=https://github.com/android/platform_system_core/blob/fd4c6b0a3a25921a9fe24691a695d715aecb6afe/toolbox/NOTICE>33 copies of BSD license text</a>
  37. were concatenated together when copyright dates changed, or the strange
  38. solution the busybox developers used to resolve tension between GPLv2's "no
  39. additional restrictions" and BSD's "you must include this large hunk of text"
  40. by sticking the two licenses at
  41. <a href=http://git.busybox.net/busybox/tree/networking/ping.c?id=887a1ad57fe978cd320be358effbe66df8a068bf>opposite ends of the file</a> and hoping nobody
  42. noticed.</a>
  43. <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
  44. a conference shortly before I started using the name,
  45. and <a href=0bsd-mckusick.txt>again in 2018</a>.</p>
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