Re: [OctDev] Octave-forge packaging

[Paul Kienzle]

On Apr 23, 2005, at 6:47 PM, Rafael Laboissiere wrote:

> * John W. Eaton <address@hidden> [2005-04-23 14:38]:
>
> > It depends on whether you agree with the FSF that having the "user
> > perfrom the link" is a violation of the GPL.  The reason is that this
> > is a subterfuge.  No one person along the way is doing something avoid
> > the terms of the GPL, but the result is the same.
> >
> > Clearly, different people have different ideas about the claim that
> > the FSF makes.  But I agree with the FSF interpretation.  If you
> > accept the other interpretation, and say that it is OK to have the
> > user perform the link, then the GPL is weakened to the point where it
> > might as well not exist.  In any case where the terms of the GPL would
> > be violated by distributing non-free software linked with GPL
> > software, we could just distribute the parts separately and ask that
> > users perform the final step of linking them together.
>
> Thanks for the clarifications.  The issue now boils down to the 
> following
> question: which license should I actually use for licensing octave-gpc?

According to the above interpretation, there is no license under which 
you can release octave-gpc which will remove the problem.

Whether or not the above is a correct interpretation has AFAIK not been 
decided.  I happen to disagree with the FSF interpretation. Linking is 
a completely arbitrary criterion. I could just as easily write the 
arguments to a file and call a separate program to invoke the function. 
A memory based filesystem would make this faster.  It should even be 
possible to write a specialized 'filesystem' which allows one process 
to access memory from another without a copy, making the overhead 
almost invisible.

Personal views aside, I'm content to remove any of my code from 
octave-forge if John believes it violates his license.  That includes 
gcv since I'm responsible for putting it there.  You will have to 
decide for yourself what to do with gpc. At a minimum I can remove 
nonfree from future releases if the Debian and Fedora maintainers 
insist.  Let me know.

- Paul