Re: DFSG and assembler code
Hi,
many thanks to Paul, Adam and Krzysztof for their help/comments so far
as well as to Lionel and Benjamin from upstream.
On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 06:47:51PM -0400, Paul Tagliamonte wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 20, 2013 at 12:30:32AM +0200, Adam Borowski wrote:
> > On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 11:55:12PM +0200, Andreas B. Mundt wrote:
> > > It contains so-called ROM-dumpers in assembler code which have been
> > > removed for DFSG reasons on the older versions of this package, and I
> > > followed that example and removed them from the version in sid as
> > > well.
> > >
[...]
> >
> > Assembler is just as valid a programming language as any other (or more,
> > compared to, say, Malbolge). And here you have comments, #ifdefs and so
> > on, so it's not the result of disassembly.
>
> I agree with this
>
> >
> > Ie, fully kosher DFSG code.
> >
> > > Is it necessary to remove the files for DFSG reasons?
> >
> > No, why? They come with source which is clearly the preferred form for
> > modification. If assembler was forbidden, we'd have to kick out such
> > unimportant packages as linux, etc.
>
[...]
>
> From a quick glance, it doesn't appear this is an issue.Have you asked
> the old maintainer why?
I contacted the old maintainer and upstream about the issue and things
are much clearer now. The problem is not the assembler code, but the
binary code that results from compiling them. To do that, compilers
not available in Debian are needed:
With the current version, the Z80 ROM dumpers (ti73 - ti86) are built
using spasm, which is not packaged for Debian, and the 68k ROM dumpers
(ti89 - v200) are built using tigcc/gcc4ti, which is also free
software, but not packaged for Debian either.
To be able to compile the program with standard tools, the
pre-compiled code of the ROM-dumpers is included in the source. This
code needs to be removed for DFSG reasons.
So for the time being, I fear we have to live with not supporting ROM
dumps - if you have an idea how to solve the issue please let me
know. The package is available here:
<URL:http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=debian-science/packages/libticalcs.git>
Best regards,
Andi
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