BSDlisenssiä

BSDlisenssiä refers to a family of permissive free software licenses originating from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). These licenses are known for their minimal restrictions, allowing users to use, modify, and distribute the software freely, including in proprietary products, with only a few conditions.

The most common variant is the BSD 2-clause license, often called the "Simplified BSD License" or "FreeBSD License." It requires that any redistribution of the source code must retain the original copyright notice and disclaimer. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce these in documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

The BSD 3-clause license, also known as the "New BSD License" or "Modified BSD License," adds a clause prohibiting the use of the name of the copyright holder or contributors to endorse or promote derivative products without specific prior written permission.

A key characteristic of BSD licenses is their permissiveness, which distinguishes them from copyleft licenses like the GNU General Public License (GPL). BSD-licensed software can be incorporated into closed-source projects, and the modified versions do not need to be released under the same BSD license. This flexibility has made BSD licenses popular for a wide range of software, from operating systems to libraries and applications.