FFTPACK License incorrectly identified as GPL (!)

[decamajo]

Description

Extract licenses information from the pffft.c file produces unexpected results. These results does not match the license information inside the file. Same issue for pffft.h. Expected is FFTPACK. got is BSD and GPL (!)

How To Reproduce

1. Create a test folder
2. Download the pffft.c file into a "src" folder inside the created folder
   https://github.com/marton78/pffft/blob/master/pffft.c
3. Download scancode (current version), extract it into a "scancode" folder inside the created folder
   https://github.com/nexB/scancode-toolkit
4. Execute scancode to read the licenses information from the pffft.c file
   scancode\scancode --only-findings -l --csv pffft-licenses-new.csv src\
5. Open the source file pffft.c - It contains just information about the FFTPACK license
6. Open the generated file pffft-licenses-new.csv - It contains information about GPL2, BSD and others, but not FFTPACK

System configuration

Windows 10 Professional
scancode downloaded from github as ZIP file and extracted into a folder
scancode first run output:

* Configuring ScanCode for first use...
Python 3.7.6
C:\Python37\python.exe
Verbindung erstellt für D:\work\OSS_algoIssue\scancode\bin <<===>> D:\work\OSS_algoIssue\scancode\Scripts
Error: no such option: --output-csv

D:\work\OSS_algoIssue>scancode\scancode --help
Usage: scancode [OPTIONS] <OUTPUT FORMAT OPTION(s)> <input>...

...

Version information:

D:\work\OSS_algoIssue>scancode\scancode --version
ScanCode version 3.1.2

[pombredanne]

@decamajo Thank you for the report.
This is looking like a bsd-new/3-Clause BSD will clauses order shuffled which is a rare and new thing!
If this is confirmed, then we could treat that as a plain bsd-new as the order of the clauses should not matter too much... But I can see enough small text differences that while this is a bsd-new in the spirit, this may be its own new license text.
@johnmhoran @LeChasseur @richardfontana @DennisClark @mjherzog input welcome

1. this is a diff between this text and the 3-Clause-BSD https://gist.github.com/pombredanne/6a08fb15ffb52493eeccf874eca29d09/revisions

2. this is a diff between this text modified to have the clauses in the same order as the 3-Clause-BSD and the 3-Clause-BSD https://gist.github.com/pombredanne/64b36f9c982df43c52fc03f919ced1fe/revisions

In the second case, you can see that in essence the difference are in the warranty disclaimer. My question then is:

Do these change warrant create a new license or is this text instead only a variant on the 3-Clause-BSD.

for reference is the whole text we are considering:

   FFTPACK license:

   http://www.cisl.ucar.edu/css/software/fftpack5/ftpk.html

   Copyright (c) 2004 the University Corporation for Atmospheric
   Research ("UCAR"). All rights reserved. Developed by NCAR's
   Computational and Information Systems Laboratory, UCAR,
   www.cisl.ucar.edu.

   Redistribution and use of the Software in source and binary forms,
   with or without modification, is permitted provided that the
   following conditions are met:

   - Neither the names of NCAR's Computational and Information Systems
   Laboratory, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research,
   nor the names of its sponsors or contributors may be used to
   endorse or promote products derived from this Software without
   specific prior written permission.  

   - Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
   notices, this list of conditions, and the disclaimer below.

   - Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
   notice, this list of conditions, and the disclaimer below in the
   documentation and/or other materials provided with the
   distribution.

   THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
   EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
   MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
   NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE CONTRIBUTORS OR COPYRIGHT
   HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL,
   EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN
   ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN
   CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS WITH THE
   SOFTWARE.

[richardfontana]

@pombredanne While it is a variant of 3-clause BSD I think it is sufficiently textually distinct that I would treat it as a unique license (deserving of its own identification when scanning, I mean).

[decamajo]

Hi, thanks to everyone for taking time with this issue!

Just to be precise about our concern: scancode also outputs the file is under the terms of the GPL 2.0 license and we all know about the implications.

Anyway, we came with a workaround for our system (adding license information for the file manually) and therefore we downgrade the issue internally (from prio 1 to 3)

[pombredanne]

This has been fixed and merged in develop with f6e28bb by @MaJuRG
Thank you ++