BSD-3-Clause
Why we chose FreeBSD's license — and what it means for you
Clawdie is licensed under the BSD 3-Clause License — the same license that governs FreeBSD, the OS it runs on. This was a deliberate choice, not a default.
Why BSD-3 over MIT
Our upstream, NanoClaw by Peter Steinberger, is MIT licensed. BSD-3-Clause is fully compatible with MIT — you can use MIT code in a BSD-3 project without restriction. We chose BSD-3 because it adds one thing MIT does not:
"Neither the name Clawdie nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission."
MIT allows anyone to ship a product and imply Clawdie endorses it. BSD-3 requires them to ask first. This protects both the project's name and its users.
The other two clauses are identical to MIT in effect: preserve the copyright notice, preserve the disclaimer. That's it. No copyleft, no share-alike, no open-sourcing obligation. You can build a commercial product on Clawdie and keep it proprietary — you just cannot claim we endorse it.
The FreeBSD lineage
BSD-3-Clause is not an arbitrary choice. FreeBSD itself, its ports tree, and most of its toolchain carry this exact license. Running Clawdie on FreeBSD under BSD-3 makes the lineage explicit: the OS, the jails, the ZFS filesystem, and the application all share the same licensing philosophy.
This philosophy predates the modern open source movement — BSD licenses originate from the University of California, Berkeley, in the late 1970s. They were designed to allow maximum reuse with minimum encumbrance, while protecting the institution's name.
Who else runs BSD-3
The non-endorsement clause is not obscure fine print. It is the reason several of the largest technology deployments in the world chose FreeBSD and BSD-3 specifically:
| Organisation | BSD-derived system | Why BSD-3 mattered |
|---|---|---|
| Sony PlayStation | Orbis OS (PS4 · PS5) is built on FreeBSD | Commercial product, proprietary features — BSD-3 allows this without requiring source disclosure. Sony cannot claim FreeBSD endorses PlayStation. |
| Apple | macOS · iOS · watchOS userland derived from BSD | Darwin (the macOS kernel) includes BSD components under BSD-3. Apple's commercial products are built on it. Same clause 3 applies. |
| Netflix | FreeBSD on Open Connect Appliances (CDN) | Runs FreeBSD on tens of thousands of servers. BSD-3 lets Netflix use it commercially and contribute back without GPL copyleft obligations. |
| Juniper · Cisco | Network OS derivatives of BSD | Commercial networking equipment. BSD-3 is the standard for networking firmware: permissive but name-protected. |
| FreeBSD on messaging servers | Pre-Meta infrastructure ran extensively on FreeBSD. Billions of messages routed through BSD-3 software. |
Every organisation above chose BSD-3 because they needed to build something commercial on top of something open — and they needed the assurance that the upstream project's name could not be used to imply endorsement of their derivative. Clawdie is small. The principle is not.
Credit travels with the code
BSD-3-Clause requires that the original copyright notice be preserved in all redistributions. This is how Clawdie handles it:
| Layer | Copyright | License |
|---|---|---|
| FreeBSD OS | The FreeBSD Project | BSD-2-Clause · BSD-3-Clause |
| NanoClaw | Peter Steinberger, 2024 | MIT — preserved in our LICENSE file |
| Clawdie | Sam (Samo Blatnik) and Clawdie contributors, 2026 | BSD-3-Clause |
If you build on Clawdie, your LICENSE or
NOTICE file should carry the above chain.
This is not bureaucracy — it is how attribution survives forks.
What you can do
| Action | Permitted |
|---|---|
| Use Clawdie commercially, including in a paid product | ✓ yes |
| Modify Clawdie and keep the modifications private | ✓ yes |
| Redistribute Clawdie, modified or unmodified | ✓ yes — with copyright notice |
| Use Clawdie in a GPL v3 project | ✓ yes — BSD-3 is GPL-compatible |
| Say "powered by Clawdie" in your product | ✓ yes — factual attribution |
| Say "endorsed by Clawdie" or "official Clawdie product" | ✗ no — requires written permission |
Full license text
BSD 3-Clause License
Copyright (c) 2026, Sam (Samo Blatnik) and Clawdie contributors
Built on NanoClaw — Copyright (c) 2024 Peter Steinberger (MIT License)
All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice,
this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice,
this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation
and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
3. Neither the name of the copyright holder nor the names of its contributors
may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
without specific prior written permission.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS"
AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR
SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER
CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY,
OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE
OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.