Licenses/BSD 2-Clause License

BSD 2-Clause License

Almost identical to MIT. Keep the copyright notice, that's it.

permissiveSPDX: BSD-2-Clause

Commercial use

✓ Yes

Modify

✓ Yes

Distribute

✓ Yes

Must open source changes

✗ No

Must attribute

✓ Yes

Patent grant

✗ No

What this license means

The 2-clause BSD license is functionally equivalent to MIT for most purposes. Include the copyright notice and disclaimer in source and binary distributions. That's it. Used historically by BSD Unix derivatives and many academic projects.

When you encounter this license

Treat the same as MIT. No practical difference for most developers.

Watch out for

No patent grant (same as MIT). Some older code uses the 3-clause or 4-clause BSD variants which have additional restrictions.

This guide is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For licensing decisions in commercial products, consult a qualified attorney.