Bug#750731: FastAC license issue
For the record. The packing for laszip has been available for some time
now.
Unfortunately the LASzip source uses a modified copy of the FastAC
(Readme [1], Source [2]) algorithm whose license doesn't allow
modification making it incompatible with the LGPL-2.1 license used by
LASzip. See the thread started by the Debian FTP master feedback [3].
I've contacted the FastAC authors asking them to consider relicensing
the code, Amir Said replied that he would be glad to see it used in Free
Software projects and asked what they needed to do. I've recommended
using the BSD-2-Clause [4] license which is close to the currently
license of FastAC and most widely compatible with other Free Software
licenses.
It has been very quiet ever since. Recently I restarted the discussion
with the FastAC authors and this time also included the libLAS & LASzip
authors, but no progress has been made still.
[1] http://www.cipr.rpi.edu/research/SPIHT/EW_Code/FastAC_Readme.pdf
[2] http://www.cipr.rpi.edu/research/SPIHT/EW_Code/FastAC.zip
[3]
http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-grass-devel/2014-August/021701.html
[4] http://spdx.org/licenses/BSD-2-Clause
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