Re: Octave for OS X (was: How to install Octave 4.0.1 on OS X Yosemite)

[edmund ronald]

Does anyone here have any GPL-related legal, ideological  or personal objection to my code-signing an OS X binary and distributing it? 

Which is the version of the GPL that applies? 

BTW, as most here realize, Apple's security architecture is going to create a bunch of headaches with any native Mac distribution - it's going to be a Red Queen situation, with the Mac maintainers running to keep in place ie. keep their binary compatible as Apple's rules change.

Edmund

ᐧ

On Tue, Jun 7, 2016 at 10:56 PM, Carnë Draug <address@hidden> wrote:

On 6 June 2016 at 10:09, Sebastian Schöps <address@hidden> wrote:
> bpabbott wrote
>> [...]
>>
>> Is the problem that it can only be built on OS X? If not, what if the
>> build tools use a license which is compatible with all versions of the GNU
>> General Public License? I’m not sure that is the case for the Xcode gui,
>> but it appears that is the case for the tools.
>>
>>       http://opensource.apple.com/release/developer-tools-72/
>>
>>       https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1815020
>>
>>       http://llvm.org/docs/DeveloperPolicy.html#copyright
>>
>>       https://opensource.org/licenses/UoI-NCSA.php
>>
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Illinois/NCSA_Open_Source_License
>>
>> Ben
>
> I like to support Ben's statement. The toolchain is free. To my best
> knowledge, we are not using or linking to proprietary stuff as Java or
> Xcode. The underlying operating system is Darwin which is also free.
> However, possibly the creation of the installer itself is based on
> proprietary Apple code. If this is the only problem, we could ship a zip
> instead of a dmg.
>
> Does anyone know the rules for uploading or hyperlinking stuff on GNU
> servers exactly? (the actual wording is probably important)
>

I thought that there were rules but I couldn't find any.  I have asked on
IRC and no one seems to know of any such rule.  However, the principle
behind it is still sound.  We shouldn't be distributing binaries that can't
be built with free software.

The problem is not the dmg format, although there should be free tools to
create those.  The problem is the actual OS which doesn't look free.  Or
is it?  I am not very familiar with Mac.  While Darwin does seem like free,
can you actually build the binary there?

Basically, we fell uncomfortable with gnu.org/software/octave endorsing a
binary for OS X that can only be built on OS X.

That's kind of the same reasoning why there was no Windows binary from
Octave although Octave Forge had them for a very long time.

Carnë