[Debian-med-packaging] Your try to get a free libcolt-java (Was: r16752 - in trunk/packages/libcolt-java/trunk/debian: . patches)

[Tim Booth]

We could try nagging Wolfgang via Twitter:

https://twitter.com/whoschek

hashtag = #freethecode

I would do so myself, but I'm not on Twitter.

TIM

On Thu, 2014-06-19 at 14:21 +0100, Andreas Tille wrote:
> Hi folks,
> 
> I'm stumbing again and again about this issue.  Can anybody help us
> solving this nasty issue.  Currently I try to build packages from
> libssj-java[1] (as predependency of some other package in our focus)
> which also depends from libcolt-java.  I keep on thinking that it would
> really help if some other / more people would add to my nagging to
> upstream for some relicensing.  My last mail about this was here:
> 
>    https://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/debian-med-packaging/2014-February/025141.html
> 
> So please people, if you really regard my work as highly as it is
> expressed from time to time it would *really* safe me some time if
> people would fire up their MUA and send another mail to the HEP authors
> to kill the stupid addition to the GPL from their way outdated code
> nobody really remembers any more but which always fires back as
> stumbling stone.   If you are interested to help and have not yet
> an idea what to do please ask and I'll explain in more detail.
> 
> The thing with Tims patch below is that it does not solve the licensing
> issue in my opinion and Thorsten as our man in the ftpmaster team has
> not respondet yet.
> 
> Kind regards
> 
>         Andreas.
> 
> [1] svn://anonscm.debian.org/debian-med/trunk/packages/libssj-java
> 
> On Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 10:06:20PM +0200, Andreas Tille wrote:
> > Hi Tim,
> > 
> > many thanks for trying your luck to free libcolt-java.  It is really
> > appreciated and I would really love if others would try to join your
> > attempt.
> > 
> > However, when reading your comment of the patch:
> > 
> > On Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 02:49:21PM +0000, Timothy Booth wrote:
> > > Added: trunk/packages/libcolt-java/trunk/debian/patches/build_without_aida_interface_defs.patch
> > > ===================================================================
> > > --- trunk/packages/libcolt-java/trunk/debian/patches/build_without_aida_interface_defs.patch	                        (rev 0)
> > > +++ trunk/packages/libcolt-java/trunk/debian/patches/build_without_aida_interface_defs.patch	2014-04-22 14:49:20 UTC (rev 16752)
> > > @@ -0,0 +1,948 @@
> > > +This patch forcefully rips out references to all the I*.java interface files
> > > +that are not DFSG-free, having a "no military use" restriction.
> > > +
> > > +See: http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/debian-med-packaging/2014-April/025987.html
> > > +
> > > +However, it is ambiguous whether the files uder hep/aida/ref and hep/aida/bin are also
> > > +under the non-free license.  Only Wolfgang Hoschek can answer this question and he has been
> > > +sadly silent so far.  So I don't know if this patch actually solves anything or not.
> > > +
> > > +The code is (or should be) functionally equivalent since the interface defs contain no actual code,
> > > +only function and class prototypes, and the process of removing them was mostly a matter of
> > > +find-and-replace of the interface names with the implementing class names.  However the code
> > > +is certainly less neat after this patch - especially as I forced VariableAxis to inherit from
> > > +FixedAxis - and also any code which links against Colt and references the I* classes will fail
> > > +to build and will require patching too.
> > > +
> > > +-- Tim Booth <tbooth at ceh.ac.uk>, April 2014
> > 
> > I think we are not done yet.  Quoting xdocs/license.xml says:
> > 
> > Packages hep.aida.*
> >   ...  with the exception that any usage related to military applications
> >        is expressly forbidden
> > 
> > So I think even a patch to the existing code is not sufficient since the
> > patch does not kick the code out of the source package.  We rather need
> > something like
> > 
> >    Files-Excluded: src/hep/aida
> > 
> > in d/copyright to fullfill the requirement to get the package accepted
> > in Debian main.  I wonder whether the package
> > 
> >    libjas-plotter-java
> > 
> > might provide some replacement code or whether we could make use of
> > 
> >    http://aida.freehep.org/download.thtml
> > 
> > (after packaging it following the scheme of other freehep packages.)
> > 
> > Or we try again to nag the only person who is involved in this code who
> > was actually at least answering and did not covered in total silence.
> > May be we really try the approach I suggested here:
> > 
> >    https://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/debian-med-packaging/2014-February/025141.html
> > 
> > Kind regards
> > 
> >      Andreas.
> > 
> > -- 
> > http://fam-tille.de
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Debian-med-packaging mailing list
> > Debian-med-packaging at lists.alioth.debian.org
> > http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/debian-med-packaging
> > 
> 

-- 
Tim Booth <tbooth at ceh.ac.uk>
NERC Environmental Bioinformatics Centre 

Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
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OX10 8BB 

http://nebc.nerc.ac.uk
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