[remram]

> I know I'm being pedantic, but this is a narrowing of rights.

No, it's not. Explicitly stating which rights you don't grant is not more narrow than implicitly not granting them, it's just clearer. Copyrights and trademark rights are different.

[Supermancho]

> is not more narrow than implicitly not granting them

Implicitly not granted? You mean, not mentioned at all? Imagine a world in which the modified BSD license exists in a vacuum. This license restricts how a product can be endorsed/promoted as per the clause. Granted, additional restrictions are removed in regard to "PHP" et al.

The shape is different, not just clearer.

[remram]

I don't know what you are talking about. Many licenses don't mention trademark issues at all, that doesn't mean they grant you the right to use the trademark.

"Not mentioned at all" does not mean you can do it. Licenses do not restrict, they permit, from a default of "you may not use my stuff".

The license text could also say "you may not break into my house". That would not make it a "narrowing of rights", and that doesn't mean other licenses implicitly grant you the right to break into the software author's house if you use their software.

[hnarn]

I think the point the previous poster is trying to make is that:

> This license restricts how a product can be endorsed/promoted as per the clause.

...is technically not true for licenses, because they do not _restrict_ usage, rather they _permit_ usage. The usage is, by default, always restricted by automatic copyright and authorship laws, so any license (including the GPL) is not a restriction but a permission, since it has _granted_ permissions that were implicitly not there.

So if you change your license in a way where it appears more restrictions have been added, but those restrictions were already implicit because they were not even covered or taken into account in your original license, no new restrictions were added, your "grant" was just made easier to understand.