Bug#741196: libpetsc3.4.2: libpetsc.so.3.4.2 links with both GPL-licensed and GPL-incompatible libraries

[Francesco Poli]

On Thu, 7 Jul 2016 19:27:47 +0200 Lucas Nussbaum wrote:

> On 09/03/14 at 22:26 +0100, Francesco Poli (wintermute) wrote:
[...]
> >  (A) SCOTCH copyright holders should be contacted and persuaded to
> > re-license (or dual-license) it under GPLv2-or-later-compatible terms
>
> Hi Francesco,

Hello Lucas,
thanks for following up on this licensing issue!
I am very glad you stepped in.

>
> Have you tried the above?

Yes, I have, multiple times.

As I said in the original bug report:

| As stated in other bug reports, the best solution is (A). Thus, I renew
| my call for help to push in the direction of {re|dual}-licensing SCOTCH
| under the GNU LGPL v2.1: please see https://bugs.debian.org/740463#5
| for the details.

The relevant part of #740463#5 is:

| The best solution is (A): having SCOTCH re-licensed under
| GPLv2-or-later-compatible terms would eliminate all the SCOTCH
| license incompatibility issues.
| Since SCOTCH used to be LGPL-licensed (before switching to CeCILL-C!
| oh nooo!), I got in touch with the main author of SCOTCH
| (François Pellegrini) and tried to persuade him that SCOTCH should
| be re-licensed, in the hope that he would discuss the issue with
| the actual copyright holders (INRIA) and obtain the necessary paperwork.
| I talked to him in 2011, explaining the issue, but I apparently failed
| to convince him that there indeed is an issue.
| I have recently tried again to get in touch with him, but I haven't
| succeeded.
|
| Now I really need your help: please try hard to pursue solution (A).
| Succeeding would solve the issue for elmerfem, but also really benefit
| several other packages which suffer from similar problems with SCOTCH.

>
> It seems that the main SCOTCH copyright holders is Francois Pellegrini,

It is my understanding that he is the main author, but the copyright
holder is INRIA (along with ENSEIRB and CNRS).
Please see
https://tracker.debian.org/media/packages/s/scotch/copyright-5.1.12b.dfsg-2

However, I agree with you that François is really the person to be
persuaded.

Once he is convinced that SCOTCH should be re-licensed, I think he
will know who has to be contacted, in order to obtain the necessary
paperwork. Or, at least, I hope so.

> who is very active in the French Free Software community. One of the
> colleagues (same Inria research team) of Francois is Brice Goglin, who
> is a DD. So it might be useful to try to contact them.

This is the kind of help I have been asking for since I filed these
bug reports.
If you can get in touch with François Pellegrini, directly or
indirectly, and explain the issue to him in a convincing manner,
then I would be really really grateful.

As I said, I tried multiple times, but François no longer replies
to my e-mail messages. That's why I need help from people more likely
to be listened to.

>
> Also, I don't think that the CeCILL license is very popular at Inria
> anymore, but I might be wrong.

I hope this is the case, since license proliferation is really bad
and has caused many headaches to many concerned people.

Thanks for any help you may provide in solving this long-standing
issue.

Bye.



-- 
 http://www.inventati.org/frx/
 There's not a second to spare! To the laboratory!
..................................................... Francesco Poli .
 GnuPG key fpr == CA01 1147 9CD2 EFDF FB82  3925 3E1C 27E1 1F69 BFFE
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