Re: GPL'd libforms dependent package
John Lapeyre <lapeyre@physics.Arizona.EDU> writes:
> This a kind of interesting looking package. It is GPL'd but
> depends on a no-source-available library. I just reread the relevant
> portions of the GPL, but I'm no Talmudic scholar.
> Can the GPL be properly applied to this ?
>
> http://ifb.bv.tu-berlin.de/JOCHEN/XSTAB/xstab.html
All the author has to do is add something to the effect that
``As a special exception the software may be distributed linked against the
libforms library without including the source of the libforms library even
though the GPL would normally bar this, as long as the requirements of the
license are followed in every other respect.''
or something like that. i'm not a lawyer, check dejanews for how RMS phrased
it when he was suggesting something like that for the gimp w.r.t. plugins. In
which case the package can go in contrib.
However, a better solution would be to try compiling it against fltk. We have
a fltk package based on the last stable release (i think) of it before it went
non-free. It's a nice lightweight LGPL'd toolkit which is nearly drop-in
compatible with libforms.
If he isn't using anything tricky it is likely to work with fltk without any
source modifications, in which case it can go in main.
greg
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