Re: Reproducible, precompiled .o files: what say policy+gpl?

[Andreas Barth <aba@not.so.argh.org>]

* Wouter Verhelst (wouter@grep.be) [041019 00:40]:
> On Mon, Oct 18, 2004 at 07:51:00PM +0200, Josselin Mouette wrote:
> > Le lundi 18 octobre 2004 à 19:22 +0200, Wesley W. Terpstra a écrit :
> > > So, when it comes time to release this and include it in a .deb, I ask
> > > myself: what would happen if I included (with the C source and ocaml
> > > compiler) some precompiled object files for i386? As long as the build
> > > target is i386, these object files could be linked in instead of using
> > > gcc to produce (slower) object files. This would mean a 2* speedup for
> > > users, which is vital in order to reach line-speed. Other platforms 
> > > recompile as normal.
> > > 
> > > On the other hand, is this still open source?
> > > Is this allowed by policy?
> > > Can this go into main?
> > 
> > Main must be built with only packages from main.

> No, that's not true.
> 
>      In addition, the packages in _main_
>         * must not require a package outside of _main_ for compilation or
>           execution (thus, the package must not declare a "Depends",
>           "Recommends", or "Build-Depends" relationship on a non-_main_
>           package),
> 
> There's a difference, which is crucial. ICC may not be Free Software,
> policy does not say you must only use Free Software to build a package;
> it says you must not /require/ a package outside main to build it.
> 
> The difference is subtle, but crucial.
> 
> Wesley's software can be built using software in main. It will not be as
> fast, but it will still do its job, flawlessly, without loss of
> features, with the ability to modify the software to better meet one's
> needs if so required.

I disagree.

A program is IMHO not only specified by the fact that it does certain
transformations from input to output, but also by the speed it does
this. If this specification can be matched by gcc, why consider using
icc at all? And if not, it requires icc. (You can also consider what
happens when we want to do a security update: Does the security team
need to install icc, or do we want that the software runs significantly
slower afterwards, and misses its specification?)

If icc is required for that application, than it needs to go to contrib.
If not, please compile it with gcc.


Cheers,
Andi
-- 
   http://home.arcor.de/andreas-barth/
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