Bug#618696: elmer: multiple licensing issues

[Francesco Poli (wintermute)]

Package: elmer
Version: 5.5.0.svn.4499.dfsg-1
Severity: serious
Justification: Policy 2.2.1


Hello again Debian Science Maintainers,
thanks for maintaining elmer in Debian.

This package is released under the terms of the GNU GPL v2 or later,
but it also incorporates file elmergrid/acx_metis.m4, which is
released under the terms of the QPL v1.0

This seems to cause a first licensing issue, for two reasons.

Reason (I) is that the QPL v1.0 fails to meet the DFSG, in my (and
other people's) opinion: please see some (long) threads [1][2] on
debian-legal and, for instance, package libcwd, which was moved to
non-free because of the QPL [3].

[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/07/msg00157.html
[2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/07/msg00339.html
[3] http://bugs.debian.org/251983

Please note that package ocaml is in main, since it is licensed under
a modified QPL, without the choice of venue clause and with an
additional permission to ignore clause 6c [4].

[4] see ocaml changelog entry for version 3.08.1-1

Reason (II) is that, even for people who disagree on the non-freeness
of the QPL, the QPL is clearly GPL-incompatible: as a consequence,
I would say that the binary package including elmergrid is currently
undistributable, as this is released under the GPL (v2 or later)
and incorporates a GPL-incompatible file.

I think the possible solutions are:

 (1A) elmergrid/acx_metis.m4 should be replaced by a GPL-compatible
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
GPL-compatible terms.


A second licensing issue seems to be caused by ElmerGUI, which links
with libopencascade-*-6.3.0, which is released under the terms of the
(GPL-incompatible) OCTPL v6.3: this problem is partially similar to
bug #617613 [5].

[5] http://bugs.debian.org/617613

It's true that ElmerGUI has a license exception that gives permission
to link ElmerGUI with Open CASCADE v6.3 or later, but it seems that
ElmerGUI also links with libreadline6, which is released under the
terms of the GNU GPL v3 or later [6] (with no additional permissions),
and (possibly) with libumfpack5.4.0, which is released under the terms
of the GNU GPL v2 or later [7] (with no additional permissions).

[6] http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/r/readline6/readline6_6.1-3/libreadline6.copyright
[7] http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/s/suitesparse/suitesparse_3.4.0-2/libsuitesparse-dev.copyright

If it's true that ElmerGUI links with libreadline6 and/or with
libumfpack5.4.0, then I would say that elmer (the binary package)
is currently undistributable, as it links with both GPL-licensed
libraries and a GPL-incompatible one.

The possible solutions I can think of, in descending order of
desirability, are:

 (2A) Open CASCADE S.A.S. should be contacted and persuaded to
re-license Open CASCADE Technology under GPLv2-and-v3-compatible terms.

 (2B) Open CASCADE Technology should be substituted with a
GPLv2-and-v3-compatible replacement, if any is available.

 (2C) libreadline and/or UMFPACK copyright holders should be asked to
add a license exception that gives permission to link their library with
code released under the OCTPL.

As explained in bug #617613 [5], I am trying hard to achieve
solution (2A), but I need help in persuading Open CASCADE S.A.S. to
switch to the GNU LGPL v2.1, so, once again, please join me in this
persuasion effort!

Thanks for any help you can provide.