Bug#618696: closed by Adam C Powell IV <hazelsct at debian.org> (Re: elmer: multiple licensing issues)

[Adam C Powell IV]

severity 618696 serious
thanks

Hi Francesco,

You mentioned elsewhere (I think your bug against salome) that the
CeCILL-C license of scotch is not GPL-compatible.  (Can you describe why
or send a link?)

If that's the case, then Elmer has a problem because it links with
Scotch.  That's not one of the original issues of this bug, but is very
much a licensing issue.

More seriously, upstream distributes Elmer with METIS, which is very
non-free, and with no linking exception.  (The .dfsg package removes the
METIS code from the tree.)  As the copyright holders, this is their
prerogative, but anyone else who distributes them together risks a
copyright violation.

Let me see if upstream will work with me on this, as they did a linking
exception for OpenCASCADE.

-Adam

On Sun, 2011-04-10 at 22:48 -0400, Adam C Powell IV wrote:
> severity 618696 important
> thanks
> 
> Hi Francesco,
> 
> On Sun, 2011-04-10 at 22:56 +0200, Francesco Poli wrote:
> > reopen 618696
> > thanks
> > 
> > 
> > On Wed, 23 Mar 2011 18:51:55 +0100 Francesco Poli wrote:
> > 
> > > On Wed, 23 Mar 2011 14:15:09 +0000 Debian Bug Tracking System wrote:
> > [...] 
> > > > elmergrid/acx_metis.m4:
> > > > 
> > > > As you indicate, linking GPL objects with QPL objects creates a derived
> > > > work which violates the copyright of the GPL objects.  That's not what's
> > > > happening here.  The file acx_metis.m4 is an m4 script, not a binary, so
> > > > there is no combined derived work, and no GPL violation.
> > > 
> > > OK, so there's no GPL-compatibility issue, thanks for clarifying!
> > > 
> > > Can we address the non-freeness of QPL-licensed files, though?
> > > As I said, there are a number of precedents of QPL-licensed works that
> > > were considered unsuitable for main.
> > 
> > Since the first licensing issue is still present (non-freeness of a
> > QPL-licensed file), I am reopening the bug report.
> 
> Is QPL really considered non-DFSG-free?  The Wiki [1] includes it among
> "Licenses whose status is unsettled", and although the example mentioned
> of Qt can be in main because it is QPL/GPL (or was when this was
> written), the acceptance of deal.II [2] into main indicates that the FTP
> masters believe that QPL is DFSG-free.
> 
>  [1] http://wiki.debian.org/DFSGLicenses
>  [2] http://packages.qa.debian.org/d/deal.ii.html
> 
> > I think the possible solutions are:
> > 
> >  (A) elmergrid/acx_metis.m4 should be replaced by a DFSG-free
> > equivalent, if any is available.
> > 
> >  (1B) elmergrid/acx_metis.m4 copyright holders should be contacted
> > and persuaded to re-license (or dual-license) the file under
> > DFSG-free terms (better if GPL-compatible, but this is not a must).
> 
> I brought this file in from deal.II, and don't know of another METIS
> check script...  Since deal.II is QPL, and is in main, then this file
> and Elmer should also be permitted in main.
> 
> Though it should probably be closed, I will leave this bug open for now,
> but it should not prevent Elmer from transitioning to testing.
> 
> -Adam
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