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On Aug 3, 2020, at 12:33 PM, Denis Ovsienko via tcpdump-workers
<tcpdump-workers@lists.tcpdump.org> wrote:
>
> Whilst updating the description of files in tcpslice (the little
> relative of tcpdump) repository, it came to my attention that it does
> not have the customary LICENSE file. I have looked through the .c
> and .h files and they contain the following boilerplates:
>
> * a 4-clause BSD-style licence seemingly derived from the so-called
> LBNL 3-clause BSD: https://opensource.org/BSD-3-Clause-LBNL
> * a 3-clause BSD licence with the same text as above and two clauses
> merged together
> * GPL2+
>
> Would it be difficult to tell which licence is the right one for the
> program, and to say it in a LICENSE file for clarity?
The first step I'd take would be to get rid of the GPLed headers in favor of
BSD-licensed headers, e.g. taking the ip.h, tcp.h, and udp.h headers from
tcpdump and changing the code to work with them.
What remains are:
1) files such as tcpslice.c, which have a 3-clause variation of the original
4-clause BSD license:
https://spdx.org/licenses/BSD-4-Clause.html
that puts the fourth clause ("don't use our name to endorse or promote products
derived from this software without specific prior written permission") in a
separate sentence, with no number, after the third clause ("give us credit by
name");
2) files such as sessions.c, which have a 3-clause BSD license:
https://spdx.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause.html
(with a slight wording tweak - just "The name of the author" rather than
"Neither the name of the copyright holder nor the names of its contributors",
probably because the copyright holder is the only contributor).
The 3-clause variation of the original 4-clause BSD license has the
"advertising clause" ("All advertising materials mentioning features or use of
this software must display the following acknowledgement: This product includes
software developed by {XXX}.").
However, the 3-clause LBNL license you mention above is different - it's the
LBNL version of the 3-clause BSD license, that has 3 numbered clauses because
it doesn't have the advertising clause, not because it doesn't give the fourth
clause of the original 4-clause BSD license a number.
A while ago, I tried contacting people at LBNL to see whether the big BSD "we
hereby drop the advertising clause" letter applied to code licensed by LBNL. I
seem to remember not getting a definitive answer; I can't find *any* answer in
my mail any more. (Time to run find | xargs egrep on my mail directory?)
However, the 3-clause LBNL license *does* remove the clause - *and* the page
you cite gives
> License Steward:
> Sebastian Ainslie
> Principal Commercialization & Licensing Lead
> Computing Sciences Area & Energy Geosciences Division
> Intellectual Property Office, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
so I'll try contacting Mr. Ainslie to see whether we can replace the
3-clause-plus-one-unnumbered-clause LBL license with the 3-clause LB(N)L
license in libpcap, tcpdump, and tcpslice.
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