We used to call that &quot;public domain software&quot; and it was big in the 80s from what I recall (I was a kid then). You&#x27;d release something to the public domain and people can do with it whatever they wished.  Then GNU came around and ate everyone&#x27;s lunch, for better or worse. I suspect for better.<p>Maybe GNU is just a stop-gap movement to get everyone on board the FOSS train, who knows. BSD licensing hasn&#x27;t caused any apocalypse yet and arguably it provided a networking stack for Windows that was superior to anything MS  could rush out the door back in the NT 3.5 days.  There&#x27;s something nice about being able to put the code into commercial products without worrying about strict GNU&#x2F;GPL-like conditions.