Re: BSD-4-clause with different development organizations

Soren Stoutner <[email protected]> Sat, 10 Jan 2026 15:26:47 -0700

Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.legal
Organization	Debian
Message-ID	<24054598.EfDdHjke4D@soren-desktop>

On Saturday, January 10, 2026 3:20:44 PM Mountain Standard Time Peter 
Wienemann wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> given a project with a sizable number of files, many of them use a
> BSD-4-clause license but there are variations in the development
> organizations mentioned in clause 3. Is there an elegant way to document
> this in a machine-readable debian/copyright file? Do I have to create
> different stand-alone license stanzas for each variation or is there a
> more efficient way to do it?

This is how SPDX handles it:

https://spdx.org/licenses/BSD-4-Clause.html

The text in red is considered replaceable (variable) without changing the 
license.

I do not know if there is a Debian wide consensus on this, but I would think 
it would be acceptable to include the standard template text as displayed on 
the SPDX website, and then include a comment that the licenses in the various 
files substitute the copyright holder name into their text, with a list of all 
the copyright holder names that are substituted.

If some of the files vary in text that is not shown in red, I would add it as 
a separate license with a modified name.

-- 
Soren Stoutner
[email protected]

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