Bug#219595: marked as done (libffi2: Licensing problems)
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>From etienne.gagnon@uqam.ca Fri Nov 07 09:07:51 2003
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From: Etienne Gagnon <etienne.gagnon@uqam.ca>
To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>
Subject: libffi2: Licensing problems
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Package: libffi2
Version: 1:3.3.2-3
Severity: serious
Justification: Policy 2.3 Copyright considerations
Hi!
Libffi2 is supposed to be licensend under a very permissive license of
the type "do whatever you want with the code"[0]. Yet, the build
procedure of the Debian libffi2 source package make it impossible to
build libffi2 *without* the GCC source code, which is licensed under
the GNU GPL. So, because of this direct dependency, the libffi2
binary becomes a derivative work of GCC, and must then be licensed
under the GPL, which can have unfortunate consequences on any
non-GPL software that depends on libffi2 [SableVM comes to mind:-)].
There are of course 2 solutions:
1- Put the appropriate license on the libffi2 binary package
(e.g. GPL), and cause problems to dependent packages (not
recommended).
2- Remove the build dependency on gcc's GPL source code, and for
safety (and simplicity), split libffi2's source package from the gcc
source package (highly recommended).
I would be willing to help, if help is needed, to help the gcc/libffi2
maintainers do the split.
Etienne
[0] More precisely, /usr/share/doc/libffi2/copyright says:
--- BEGIN ---
libffi - Copyright (c) 1996-1999 Cygnus Solutions
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
``Software''), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included
in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS
OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL CYGNUS SOLUTIONS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR
OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE,
ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR
OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
--- END ---
-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
Architecture: powerpc
Kernel: Linux gandalf 2.4.20-ben1 #1 Sun Feb 2 20:00:49 EST 2003 ppc
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C
Versions of packages libffi2 depends on:
ii gcc-3.3-base 1:3.3.2-3 The GNU Compiler Collection (base
ii libc6 2.3.2.ds1-9 GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
-- no debconf information
---------------------------------------
Received: (at 219595-done) by bugs.debian.org; 13 Nov 2003 07:05:17 +0000
>From doko@cs.tu-berlin.de Thu Nov 13 01:05:16 2003
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From: Matthias Klose <doko@cs.tu-berlin.de>
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Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2003 08:04:57 +0100
To: Etienne Gagnon <etienne.gagnon@uqam.ca>, 219595-done@bugs.debian.org
Subject: Re: Bug#219595: More information on building 'standalone' libffi
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closing ...
Etienne Gagnon writes:
> Nathanael Nerode wrote:
> > Libffi and install-sh & friends are "identifiable sections", "not
> > derived from the Program" ('the Program' meaning any work available only
> > under the GPL), "can be reasonably considered independent and separate
> > works in themselves", and so they can be distributed as separate works.
>
> OK.
>
> > Try this.
> > mkdir build
> > cd build
> > ../gcc-3.3.2/libffi/configure
> > make
>
> OK. This works. :-) It would be a good idea to put a little note about it
> in the libffi directory. It is not obvious to a newby to know that this
> unusual build mechanism does not only apply to gcc itself (documented in
> gcc-3.2.2/INSTALL/).
>
> You may close this bug.
>
> Thanks a lot for answering my questions and concerns.
>
> Etienne
>
> PS: I might still file a different bug about the source package; it is not very
> convenient to have to download all of GCC's sources (megabytes and megabytes
> of data) just for looking at libbffi's sources (few kilobytes).
tags +wontfix
severity minor-wishlist
close after-some-time
I don't care. libgcj does use the included version anyway and doesn't
link to libffi directly.
Matthias
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