Re: [OctDev] Octave-forge packaging

[Dmitri A. Sergatskov]

John W. Eaton wrote:
> On 23-Apr-2005, Dmitri A. Sergatskov <address@hidden> wrote:
...
> | on netlib, but octave-forge has  LICENSE.gcvsplf which pretty much
> | prohibits commercial use of the software (not commercial distribution,
> | as far as I can tell -- IANAL).
>
> Isn't commercial distribution a commercial use?  It depends on
> precisely what is meant by "use".  But in any case, a license that
> prohibits commercial use (in any sense) would be incompatible with the
> GPL, so it could not be linked with and distributed as part of Octave.

I agree.

> Since Octave is distributed under the plain GPL with no exceptions, it
> doesn't allow non-free plugins.  So if the code is linked with Octave
> as a plugin (through the DEFUN_DLD interface or by any other means), I
> would ask that you stop distributing it.

...

It looks to me now that both gpc/ and splines/ have the same problem.
The wrappers and .m files are released under GNU, but they both
depends on proprietary libraries. In case of splines/ the proprietary
software is a single Fortran file which is included in the distribution.
So, in my opinion, the inclusion and distribution of   gcvsplf.f is
incompatible with GNU software. The rest of the source there
are "pretty useless in the Free World", but still legal to be distributed.
We just cannot build and distribute binaries.

So, my suggestion is to drop "gcvsplf.f" and distribute the rest of the code.
This "pretty useless" code could be useful one day when one writes a Free
replacement of gcvsplf.f and gpcl (or author releases it under Free license, 
etc...)

> jwe

Sincerely,

Dmitri.
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