He's definitely being way over pedantic. Reading the law like HN programmers imagine it works, rather than how it actually works.
The intent of the legal language in that spec is pretty clearly that you have to use the BSD license if you copy that code, but if you merely read it to understand the spec then you don't.
The intent of the legal language in that spec is pretty clearly that you have to use the BSD license if you copy that code, but if you merely read it to understand the spec then you don't.