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I've read that the BSD-2 or "Simplified BSD" software license removes from the BSD-3 "some language that is no longer necessary". Looking at the difference between these two licenses, it appears that this refers to

Neither the name of [project] nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

In what sense is this language "no longer necessary". Is this protection implicit because of some other statute or agreement?

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  • Explained in detail here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_licenses. See also gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.en.html
    – Robert Harvey
    Oct 28, 2015 at 18:37
  • @RobertHarvey: Where does that explain why the clause is "no longer necessary"?
    – raxacoricofallapatorius
    Oct 28, 2015 at 18:41
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    The quote that you linked to doesn't say anything at all about the 3-clause BSD license: "The ISC license is functionally equivalent to the BSD 2-Clause and MIT licenses, removing some language that is no longer necessary." I don't see how you can interpret this sentence as "the 2-clause BSD License removes some language from the 3-clause BSD License".
    – Jörg W Mittag
    Oct 28, 2015 at 18:48
  • @JörgWMittag: It's not that hard if you're me. But you have at least found an answer (I'd accept something that begin's with "That's not what it says").
    – raxacoricofallapatorius
    Oct 28, 2015 at 18:55

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In what sense is this language "no longer necessary". Is this protection implicit because of some other statute or agreement?

Generally, names are (best) protected through trademarks and some name protection is implicit in some jurisdictions, which is the reason why the non-endorsement clause in the "BSD-3" and several other licenses (Apache) is often felt to be not needed and doing double duty.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark

And for a relevant and interesting discussion on trademarks and names for free software see the Gnome Groupon story here https://www.gnome.org/groupon/ and elsewhere. /IANAL /TINLA

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