> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Fontana <[email protected]>
> Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2026 12:29 PM
>
> On Thu, Feb 12, 2026 at 2: 14 PM Tim Bird <tim. bird@ sony. com> wrote: > >
> Add a license file to reflect variants of BSD licenses, with the >
> first variant being a BSD-3-Clause license modified to > remove clause 2
> (attribution
>
> On Thu, Feb 12, 2026 at 2:14 PM Tim Bird <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > Add a license file to reflect variants of BSD licenses, with the
> > first variant being a BSD-3-Clause license modified to
> > remove clause 2 (attribution on binary formats).
>
> > diff --git a/LICENSES/deprecated/BSD-variants
> > b/LICENSES/deprecated/BSD-variants
> > new file mode 100644
> > index 000000000000..83f24d68fb87
> > --- /dev/null
> > +++ b/LICENSES/deprecated/BSD-variants
> > @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
> > +Valid-License-Identifier: LicenseRef-BSD-variant1
> > +
> > +Description:
> > +Here is the "no-binary-attribution" variant of a BSD license, numbered
> > +here as variant1. It is a standard BSD-3-Clause license, with the
> > +condition removed for attribution required in binary formats.
> > +
> > +License-Text:
> > +
> > +Copyright (c) <year> <owner> . 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,
> > + without modification.
> > +
> > + - The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote products
> > + derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
> > +
> > +THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR 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 AUTHOR 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.
>
> As far as I can tell this does not match an existing SPDX identifier,
> though it seems to be pretty close to `BSD-Source Code`
> https://spdx.org/licenses/BSD-Source-Code.html .
> Might be worthwhile for someone to open an issue in
> github.com/spdx/license-list-XML to add it.
Thanks very much for the info and suggestion.
I looked and didn't find an existing SDPX id, so I ended up using a
LicenseRef-... ID, which is not ideal. It would be better if there were
an existing ID I could use. I agree that BSD-Source-Code is a close match.
I did a cursory check, and found that this style of BSD variant is sprinkled
around in other kernel files as well (at least 10 more confirmed, and maybe
up to 50 based on grepping without closer review, yet). So this BSD variant
seems to have been popular at some point.
There are a few (minor?) wording changes between the different versions,
mostly having to do with naming the author or organization to exempt
from endorsing the product. I'm not sure if legally it matters if the exact
entity to exempt is named or not, or if "AUTHOR", "ORGANIZATION" or
"CONTRIBUTORS" is sufficient.
I wouldn't mind getting opinions on a few items in this patch:
- use of LicenseRef-BSD-variant1
- my plan to have a single file under LICENSES to handle multiple BSD variants.
- for example, do I need to list all the possible named endorsement
exemptions,
and somehow preserve them in the SPDX-License-Identifier ID, or can I use
one or
a few blanket license texts to preserve what's needed. Note that there
may only
be a few names of authors or organizations to exempt. Possibly, the SPDX
matching
guidelines will cover the text differences that are present in the kernel.
A broader question is whether the exact language of the disclaimer needs to be
preserved,
or if highly similar phrasing is sufficient, without needing to duplicate each
and every
disclaimer exactly.
Thanks again for the review. Now that I have a pointer to a closer SPDX match
I'll review
the situation, possibly ask for a new ID, or see what the SPDX community thinks.
-- Tim
