BSD Licence

The BSD License is the license by which FreeBSD is released under much like Linux being released under the 'GNU General Public License'. It governs the rights of use of the source code and related works.

The basic concept is "Please feel free to take our code, do what you want with it but give us recognition of our parts and do not sue us should something go wrong.". The following is taken from the COPYRIGHT file on a FreeBSD 6.2 installation and features the full license details:

# $FreeBSD: src/COPYRIGHT,v 1.6.2.1.4.1 2007/01/02 16:37:33 delphij Exp $
#	@(#)COPYRIGHT	8.2 (Berkeley) 3/21/94
 
The compilation of software known as FreeBSD is distributed under the
following terms:
 
Copyright (C) 1992-2007 The FreeBSD Project. All rights reserved.
 
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
are met:
1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
   notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. 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.
 
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY 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 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.
 
The 4.4BSD and 4.4BSD-Lite software is distributed under the following terms:
 
All of the documentation and software included in the 4.4BSD and 4.4BSD-Lite
Releases is copyrighted by The Regents of the University of California.
 
Copyright 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994

The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
 
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
are met:
1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
   notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. 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.
3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
   must display the following acknowledgement:
This product includes software developed by the University of
California, Berkeley and its contributors.
4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
   may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
   without specific prior written permission.
 
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS 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 REGENTS 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 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American
National Standards Committee X3, on Information Processing Systems have
given us permission to reprint portions of their documentation.
 
In the following statement, the phrase ``this text refers to portions
of the system documentation.
 
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form in
the second BSD Networking Software Release, from IEEE Std 1003.1-1988, IEEE
Standard Portable Operating System Interface for Computer Environments
(POSIX), copyright C 1988 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers, Inc.  In the event of any discrepancy between these versions
and the original IEEE Standard, the original IEEE Standard is the referee
document.
 
In the following statement, the phrase ``This material refers to portions
of the system documentation.
 
This material is reproduced with permission from American National
Standards Committee X3, on Information Processing Systems.  Computer and
Business Equipment Manufacturers Association (CBEMA), 311 First St., NW,
Suite 500, Washington, DC 20001-2178.  The developmental work of
Programming Language C was completed by the X3J11 Technical Committee.
 
The views and conclusions contained in the software and documentation are
those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing official
policies, either expressed or implied, of the Regents of the University
of California.
 
 
NOTE: The copyright of UC Berkeley's Berkeley Software Distribution ("BSD")
source has been updated.  The copyright addendum may be found at
ftp://ftp.cs.berkeley.edu/pub/4bsd/README.Impt.License.Change and is
included below.
 
July 22, 1999
 
To All Licensees, Distributors of Any Version of BSD:
 
As you know, certain of the Berkeley Software Distribution ("BSD") source
code files require that further distributions of products containing all or
portions of the software, acknowledge within their advertising materials
that such products contain software developed by UC Berkeley and its
contributors.
 
Specifically, the provision reads:
 
"     * 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
      *    must display the following acknowledgement:
      *    This product includes software developed by the University of
      *    California, Berkeley and its contributors."
 
Effective immediately, licensees and distributors are no longer required to
include the acknowledgement within advertising materials.  Accordingly, the
foregoing paragraph of those BSD Unix files containing it is hereby deleted
in its entirety.
 
William Hoskins
Director, Office of Technology Licensing
University of California, Berkeley

This covers both the works of the FreeBSD development team and the (original) works of The Regents of the University of California.