# About BSD 3-clause license



## -Snake- (Apr 18, 2017)

Good afternoon, this topic is just to ask about a little legal doubt. Out of curiosity I was reading the various existing BSD licenses and I was struck by the license of three clauses. One such clause is as follows:

"Neither the name of the <organization> nor the
     names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products
      derived from this software without specific prior written permission."

My knowledge of legality is very limited, but what I understand is this: If, for example, I create a fork of lumina desktop, which uses a BSD license of three clauses, I could not say on the official website that it is based on Lumina desktop? If not, what does that clause imply?

Thanks you.


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## roddierod (Apr 18, 2017)

IANAL...but seems to me to mean that you could not say your product has been endorse by Lumina or the contributors to Lumina without written permission


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## -Snake- (Apr 18, 2017)

roddierod said:


> IANAL...but seems to me to mean that you could not say your product has been endorse by Lumina or the contributors to Lumina without written permission



Something like you can not "take advantage" of the popularity of the original software, although I suppose if you can say that it is based on such software.


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## ANOKNUSA (Apr 18, 2017)

Close, but it's also for the protection of the original authors. It's basically saying that you cannot claim or even imply that the original creators approve of or were involved in the product that you yourself are giving people. You are simultaneously acknowledging that the product you made was only possible thanks to the work of others, and that the product you made is now distinctly different from the work of others due to your own changes. It indemnifies the original creators from responsibility for your mistakes, so that if you make changes to the software that make a mess of it, all the hate mail gets directed at you.  The GPL contains something similar, though I can't remember the wording of it.


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## -Snake- (Apr 18, 2017)

ANOKNUSA said:


> Close, but it's also for the protection of the original authors. It's basically saying that you cannot claim or even imply that the original creators approve of or were involved in the product that you yourself are giving people. You are simultaneously acknowledging that the product you made was only possible thanks to the work of others, and that the product you made is now distinctly different from the work of others due to your own changes. It indemnifies the original creators from responsibility for your mistakes, so that if you make changes to the software that make a mess of it, all the hate mail gets directed at you.  The GPL contains something similar, though I can't remember the wording of it.



Okay, I understand the purpose of this clause, and I think it's completely reasonable, the point is, what legal considerations should you consider if you want to fork a project with that license? Could you specify that it is based on X software?


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## SirDice (Apr 19, 2017)

-Snake- said:


> Could you specify that it is based on X software?


I'd guess that's actually more or less implied because you have to reproduce the original copyright notice. 

(I'm not a lawyer either)


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## -Snake- (Apr 19, 2017)

SirDice said:


> I'd guess that's actually more or less implied because you have to reproduce the original copyright notice.
> 
> (I'm not a lawyer either)



Yes It's true.


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