The BSD Gift of Freedom
The first open source license, the original BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution), was designed to permit the free use, modification, and distribution of certain University of California software without any return obligation whatsoever on the part of licensees.
The term academic freedom usually means the freedom of a (tenured) professor to speak openly without risking his or her job. This presumably results in a dynamic and diverse community of thought that enriches everyone's academic experience and results in the exploration of new ideas. But that isn't the type of academic freedom that open source deals with.
Academic open source licenses promote a slightly different kind of freedom, relating to the mission of an academic ...
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