"What makes the Go license different than the BSD under which Intel has published their code? " The go license is not different than the BSD license. Both the

"What makes the Go license different than the BSD under which Intel has published their code? " The go license is not different than the BSD license. Both the intel and the go stuff is bsd licensed. However, the BSD license requires you reproduce the copyright notices attached to it the top of the license. If you do not, you are in violation of the license (which in the US, is usually copyright infringement). By using "the go authors" as the copyright notice, go ensures you only ever have to reproduce one notice. If it says "copyright intel", now you have to reproduce A. The go notice when you use go without the stuff that is copyright intel B. The go notice and the intel notice when you use go and the stuff that is copyright intel. C. The intel notice when you use the intel stuff without anything else that is copyright go. Now, when 3 other companies decide they want their notices in there too (after all, if intel is special, why isn't broadcom, or whoever), and only add it to some files, imagine the fun that results for users. There are other issues, too, but succinctly, you don't want to live in this world. It leads to shipping things which reproduce 100's of pages of notices in documentation.