Bug#617931: gmsh: multiple licensing issues

[Francesco Poli]

On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 20:19:41 +0200 Anton Gladky wrote:

> 2012/9/18 Francesco Poli <invernomuto at paranoici.org>:
> >
> > Something that is *not* legally distributable does *not* magically
> > become distributable, just because the architecture is not officially
> > supported by the Debian Project...
> > This part of the issue may be irrelevant for the release of wheezy, but
> > not generally irrelevant: I think you should have gmsh removed from the
> > m68k architecture, in order to make this part of the issue really go
> > away.
> 
> I am not agree. It is NOT officially supported by Debian. Why should we care
> about that? The version there is 2.3.0, it is very old.

It is not officially supported by Debian, but packages built for that
architecture are still distributed by the Debian Project!
If one such package is not legally distributable, the distribution of
that package should be stopped, unless there are other ways to solve or
work around the issue!

Hence, I think that the least that should be done is removing m68k from
the list of architectures for which gmsh is auto-built. So that gmsh is
no longer present in unstable or testing for m68k.

> 
> > There seem to be other GPL-licensed libraries linked with gmsh:
> > libcholmod1.7.1 (some parts are GPL-licensed)
> > libumfpack5.4.0 (UMFPACK is GPL-licensed)
> > http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/s/suitesparse/current/copyright
> > Please correct me if I am wrong.
> >
> > Linking with these libraries seem to still make the GPL-incompatibility
> > of OCE/OpenCASCADE very relevant, unfortunately.
> > If this is really the case, then the possible solutions I can think of
> > are:
> >
> >  (A) Open CASCADE S.A.S. should be contacted and persuaded to
> > re-license Open CASCADE Technology under GPLv2-and-v3-compatible terms.
> >
> >  (B) Open CASCADE Technology should be substituted with a
> > GPLv2-and-v3-compatible replacement, if any is available.
> >
> >  (C) CHOLMOD and UMFPACK copyright holders should be asked to re-license
> > these libraries under the GNU LGPL.
> >
> >  (D) CHOLMOD and UMFPACK copyright holders should be asked to add a
> > license exception that gives permission to link these libraries with
> > code released under the OCTPL.
> 
> It is weird to contact upstream of third-party codes to ask about
> relicensing due to some uncertain license-incompatibilities.

It may be weird, but something has to be done in order to solve this
issue.

Please note that the incompatibility of the OCTPL with the GNU GPL is
not uncertain: it is clearly explained in bug #617613 (which was cited
in my original bug report). In particular, it is acknowledged by the
Open CASCADE S.A.S. FAQ <http://www.opencascade.org/occt/faq/>.

I am still convinced that the solution to be preferred is (A), but,
until we succeed in obtaining a GPL-compatible Open CASCADE, the
other possible strategies should be considered.

> 
> Actually libsuitesparse-dev is not even in build-depends of GMSH.
> I think your statement is irrelevant. Sorry.

I don't see how it can be irrelevant, sorry.

The libraries I mentioned are among the dependencies of the binary
package gmsh and of other binary packages built from the gmsh source
package: I assume that they are there for a reason.
These libraries (or part of them) are GPL-licensed, as far as I can see.

If the Gmsh executable (or the Gmsh library) is really linked with both
Open CASCADE (or OCE) and with at least one GPL-licensed library, then
the license incompatibility kicks in and makes the binary package
undistributable.
If the linking is indirect and the GPL-licensed libraries are not used
by Gmsh, then I wonder why they get pulled into the binary package
dependencies...


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