[rancid] RANCID licensing

[Dan Halperin]

Hey folks,

I noticed that the RANCID license [0] appears to be a modified BSD 4-clause
[1].

We'd like to use some code derived from RANCID in an open source, Apache
2.0 licensed project. However, it appears that BSD 4-clause and Apache 2.0
licenses are incompatible.

The Apache Software Foundation legal team has previously found that BSD
4-clause is incompatible with Apache 2.0 licensing [2], because of the
advertising clause. IMO, though I am nothing like a lawyer, the Apache 2.0
NOTICES requirement is a good replacement for advertising clause that
serves a similar purpose.

I wonder if this issue has come up here before, and whether the RANCID
copyright holders would consider relicensing under the BSD 2-Clause in
order to enable broader use.

Of course our project would be happy to call out RANCID in its README/etc.
as well -- my main concern is putting an accurate license on our project
and not placing undue burden on our transitive users.

Thanks!
Dan

[0] http://rancid.shrubbery.net/rancid/svn/rancid/trunk/rancid/COPYING
[1] https://spdx.org/licenses/BSD-4-Clause.html
[2] https://www.apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-x
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