Re: [pdf-devel] New developer and UUID module request

[Albert Meroño Peñuela]

Hi,

Apologies for the delay on posting about this, I've been busy at work
and faculty.

As required in the flyspray task, I studied possible existing
implementations for the uuid module and found the OSSP uuid package,
and the libuuid --previously in e2fsprogs-- package that Renaud was
pointing out (anyone knowing any ohter implementation, please report
it). I mailed both authors, Ralf Engelschall and Ted Ts'o, asking for
the status of their implementations regarding these three GNU PDF's
requirements for the uuid module:

- To be written in C
- To be ITU X.667 compliant
- To be GPLv3 compliant

Until now, only Ted (libuuid) has answered.

The answer to the first requirement is obviously yes.

As for the standard compliance, he pointed that the uuid library is
written to follow the OSF/DCE specification, which was used as source
material for RFC 4122 and X.667. AFAHK, 4122 and X.667 are aligned. I
hadn't got enough time to check if the alignment is partial or total
between both specifications. I think it should be performed before
deciding if libuuid's code is going to be the official uuid module
implementation or not.

Regarding the license, libuuid was originally released under LGPLv2,
but currently it is under a BSD license to allow Apple to use the
library in MacOS X. So the library is compatible with GPLv3. Ted would
appreciate changes or improvements made to libuuid to be donated back
using the currently BSD license (is that possible after adopting it in
a GPLv3 project?) instead of forking it in the GPLv3-only universe.
The BSD license legally allows us to do that, but he doesn't consider
it "a neighborly thing to do".

Cheers,

Albert Meroño

2010/12/18 Jose E. Marchesi <address@hidden>:
>
> Hi.
>
>    I'm just looking at the flyspray website and FYI there is a libuuid
>    (I've already used it) on my debian box. Here is the copyright provided
>    by the libuuid-dev debian package
>
>    [...]
>
>    That's definitelly not GPL V3 but maybe that should be a good and
>    acceptable starting point to implement the uuid module?
>
> The license of that package is clearly GPLv3-compatible.  I don't see
> any problem on introducing a dependency on that library.  A simple
> wrapper in pdf-uuid.[ch] would allow us to change the implementation in
> the future if needed.
>
> --
> Jose E. Marchesi   address@hidden
> GNU Project         http://www.gnu.org
>
>