Source and Binary Forms of Code

In the late 1980s, when the BSD license was new, software was written in source code and compiled into a binary form for execution. Those terms now have more complex practical meanings, with computer programs written in a variety of languages and executed by computers in many forms other than binary.

The phrase source code is assumed to mean the form of the software in which it was originally written by a human being. Used in this way in the BSD license, the phrase source code does not necessarily include any documentation about the program or even instructions on how to modify the source code.

Nothing in the BSD license actually requires the publication of the source code, either by the licensor of the original ...

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