The "and" means include and the "or" means optional. It needed because it basically states your rights on what you can do with the software and means you can di

The "and" means include and the "or" means optional. It needed because it basically states your rights on what you can do with the software and means you can distribute if you choose to distribute the software, it your choice or right to distribute the software (from the MIT License). The phrase "this permission notice" also cover the "NO WARRANTY" disclaimer for the software because you will have to include the license if you use it in another software but you can provide warranty under a close source license or your license states you will provide warranties. The "copyright notice" and "this permission notice" means the license. The shortest possible license that is functionally equivalent to the MIT license is the ISC license, it was created to remove language that is not needed. Read the Wikipedia article here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISC_license https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISC_license. I do not know other licenses than this. Technically it is a license but do not use it and it is just probably a joke. The SQL Blessing is technically probably a Public Domain waver. This is not legal advice and I am not a lawyer.