On Sun, 2008-06-29 at 18:38 +0200, Giuseppe Iuculano wrote: > Neil Williams ha scritto: > > >> freemat needs some files (*.f) that are not exists as a separate package > >> in Debian > > > > If those are generated files, the -dev should provide them. > > If they are source files (i.e. modifiable), these files must be > > explicitly covered by a compatible licence. You don't describe what > > these files are or do so I can't say much more than that. > These are Fortran files (source files), and are covered by the minpack > license listed here: http://ftp.netlib.org/minpack/disclaimer Fortran - should have guessed. > I assume this license compatible because is the same of minipack Debian > packages, is it right? It looks to me that libminpack1 is a shared object binary of those fortran files - why do you need (what would appear to me to be) the source code for libminpack1 in order to build your package when most builds would use the headers and link against the existing shared object? Are you reconfiguring or redefining sections of the fortran source code? minpack-dev appears to contain the relevant files that should provide all the linkage meta-data that you need (albeit that minpack doesn't use pkg-config). The licence would appear compatible but the redistribution of the fortran files is just plain wrong AFAICT. > >>>> Can I claim that these files are under Minipack license, and write a > >>>> statement in debian/copyright? > > > > How can you claim that these are under the Minipack licence if the > > minipack -dev package does not contain them? Are they packaged in the > > minipack source tarball? > > > > Yes, they are in Debian minipack source tarball. And presumably compiled into the libminpack1 binary (as that is a fortran library)? AFAICT, this is what you should do: 1. Remove the .f files that are also present in the minpack source from the source tarball of your package - it doesn't do to have identical source code files in more than one package in Debian. So you now have freemat-3.6.dfsg.tar.gz 2. Rebuild freemat against libminpack1 such that it does not try to recompile the (missing) .f files, simply links against the existing compiled object code available as /usr/lib/libminpack.so.1.0.0 (or -lminpack) 3. Comment in debian/copyright exactly which files have been removed and that this was done not only because of licence issues but because there is no good reason for two packages to distribute identical source code (as there appears to be no evidence of a fork here). What you cannot do is either: 1. patch the .f files in freemat or 2. keep the .f files in the freemat source tarball (no matter what you put in debian/copyright). All other options require the consent of either freemat or minpack upstream. -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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