Maybe using a "generic" license text as in https://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause should be considered for the template. It also insulates the expansion of the copyright holder in the leading lines to affect the license text below.

Yes that was my original proposal. The reason it was not implemented is because the ported ROS 1 code shouldn't have to change the content of the license and currently all ROS 1 code lists Willow Garage Inc. in the third clause instead of the generic "copyright holder" term.

That is why we decided to accept basically anything between Neither the name of and nor the names of its to account for all the code out there that is expanding the copyright holder in the 3rd clause

Yes that was my original proposal.

I would second that.

The reason it was not implemented is because the ported ROS 1 code shouldn't have to change the content of the license

I am not sure that is a strict requirement. If slightly modified licence blocks need to be "unified" during the process that would be acceptable (even preferable) to me. (I would prefer a strict comparison over the "alow anything in between - I could simply write a very different license block which would still be classifies as BSD...)

[I am not objecting to merge this change - I just don't think we have to make the template as flexible as possible to allow "anything" similar to pass. At the end the developer opt-in to use the copyright linter.]

Opened #107 to track alternatives. Merging this