Bug#617613: RM: freecad/0.12.5284-dfsg-7

[Francesco Poli]

On Sun, 14 Oct 2012 16:31:21 +0100 Ben Hutchings wrote:

> Package: release.debian.org
> Severity: normal
> User: release.debian.org at packages.debian.org
> Usertags: rm

Hello Ben!

> 
> freecad contains GPLv2 code

and links with a GPL-licensed library (Coin3D)

> and links to OCTPL (non-GPL-compatible)
> libraries (bug #617613)/

True.

> This is supposed to be fixed soon as there is
> a new version of libopencascade under a BSD licence
> <http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=617613#153>.

No, wait: this does not look correct, unfortunately!
There is no re-licensing under the BSD for OpenCASCADE Technology going
on (I wish there were!!!).

Please re-read the message you cited: it's Coin3D that was re-licensed
under the BSD.
Once FreeCAD links with this BSD-licensed Coin3D version and stops
incorporating any GPL-licensed code, *at that point* FreeCAD will be
able to legally link with the still GPL-incompatible OpenCASCADE
Technology framework, without any distribution issue.
Not an ideal solution, but still a solution...

> 
> Since the relicensed libopencascade

s/libopencascade/libcoin/

> is not available in Debian and
> probably will not get into wheezy, I think freecad should be removed
> from stable and testing.

This is what I wanted to avoid: I have struggled since April 2009 in
order to persuade OpenCASCADE S.A.S. to re-license the OpenCASCADE
Technology framework under GPL-compatible terms...
Unfortunately no result has been obtained yet.    :-(

In the meanwhile, the (suboptimal) solution described above (FreeCAD
that links with no GPL-licensed code and incorporates no GPL-licensed
code, in order to be able to link with GPL-incompatible code) has been
devised and is being implemented.

I don't know whether this is enough to grant a wheezy-ignore tag to bug
#617613...


Bye.

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