[Pkg-electronics-devel] Bug#834247: marked as done (ngspice is configured with --with-editline, --with-readline would work better)

[Felix Salfelder]

On Sun, Oct 14, 2018 at 08:17:58AM +0200, Carsten Schoenert wrote:
> I don't know if something has changed here, I only know the current
> cirumstances and there I don't see reasons not to use readline.

Hi Carsten,

thank you for your email.

I am not a lawyer, so I'm probably getting it wrong. My data points are

- "This is in contrast to a developer choosing to use a GPL licensed
   library to create a new application, in which case the *entire*
   combined resulting application is required to be licensed under the
   GPL when distributed, to comply with section 5 of the GPL." [1]

- "The software modules that link with the library may be under various
   GPL compatible licenses, but the work as a whole must be licensed
   under the GPL." [2]

- "Files: *
   Copyright: various people
   License: BSD-3-clause" [3]

I understand that ngspice is now DFSG free. I cannot however see whether
or not the "work as a whole" (which is probably the package you
uploaded?) is licensed under the GPL. I don't know whether this is
possible or whether it makes any difference. Maybe it's trivial (today),
but it appears to be a necessity.

(It reminds me of gnutls vs openssl, both DFSG (iirc?), but still a can of
worms. That one seemed to have been the other way round, though.)

> BTW: Any reason why this thing comes now to topic and not after this bug
> report was created?

No. But the issue was mentioned in the original bug report.

thanks
felix

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Readline#Implications_of_GNU_Readline's_GPL_license
[2] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#IfLibraryIsGPL
[3] d/copyright