Flex carries the copyright used for BSD software, slightly modified
because it originated at the Lawrence Berkeley (not Livermore!) Laboratory,
which operates under a contract with the Department of Energy:

/*-
 * Copyright (c) 1991 The Regents of the University of California.
 * All rights reserved.
 *
 * This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by
 * Vern Paxson of Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.
 *
 * The United States Government has rights in this work pursuant
 * to contract no. DE-AC03-76SF00098 between the United States
 * Department of Energy and the University of California.
 *
 * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
 * modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
 * are met:
 * 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
 *    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
 * 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
 *    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
 *    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
 * 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
 *    must display the following acknowledgement:
 *	This product includes software developed by the University of
 *	California, Berkeley and its contributors.
 * 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
 *    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
 *    without specific prior written permission.
 *
 * THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
 * ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
 * IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
 * ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
 * FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
 * DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
 * OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
 * HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
 * LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
 * OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
 * SUCH DAMAGE.
 *
 *	@(#)COPYING	5.2 (Berkeley) 4/12/91
 */

This basically says "do whatever you please with this software except
remove this notice".

Note that the "flex.skel" scanner skeleton carries no copyright notice.
You are free to do whatever you please with scanners generated using flex;
for them, you are not even bound by the above copyright.
