License not detected for permissive variant in aclocal.m4 (mawk by Thomas Dickey)

[Kannan-3757]

ScanCode Toolkit (version 32.3.3) does not detect any license for the permissive text used in aclocal.m4 from the mawk project maintained by Thomas E. Dickey.

This license is a custom permissive variant similar to MIT/BSD/X11, but it does not match any known rule in the ScanCode dataset.

Package url - https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archive/primary/+sourcefiles/mawk/1.3.4.20240123-1build1/mawk_1.3.4.20240123.orig.tar.gz

Here is the file that missed in license detection and attached result JSON for your reference.

ubuntu_2025_10_06_123203.json

We are using scancode in Linux machine and every time we are downloading the source from git.

Affected ScanCode version: 32.3.3
Affected ScanCode Output Format version: 4.0.0

[DennisClark]

@AyanSinhaMahapatra This license text looks really familiar but I cannot find it in our library. Perhaps you will have more luck. It seems to be a standard MIT with an extra clause making it similar to BSD terms.

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
"Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
distribute, distribute with modifications, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
 
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included
in all copies or portions of the Software.
 
THE 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 ABOVE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM,
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 IN THE SOFTWARE.
 
Except as contained in this notice, the name(s) of the above copyright
holders shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the
sale, use or other dealings in this Software without prior written
authorization.

[DennisClark]

@AyanSinhaMahapatra and @Kannan-3757 Found it! The text from aclocal.m4 matches the license text at
https://scancode-licensedb.aboutcode.org/x11-fsf.html

All of the license text lines in aclocal.m4 start with dnl so maybe that is throwing off the matching.