[sane-devel] license issues with sane-backends/lib/* files

[Sergey Vlasov]

Hello!

I have noticed some licensing problems with sane-backends/lib/*
files.

Some of these files have pure GNU GPL license, without the SANE
exception, but currently they are linked into backends:

  getopt.c
  getopt1.c
  md5.c

The problem might not be significant, as the routines in these
files are not really used by any backend (getopt is not used
anywhere in the backend or sanei code, and the MD5 functions are
used only in sanei_auth.c, which is again not used by any
backend).  However, the corresponding object files must not be
linked into the backend libraries.

One way to fix the problem is to remove getopt.o, getopt1.o and
md5.o from the definition of LIBLIB_FUNCS in
backends/Makefile.in:

LIBLIB_FUNCS = $(basename @LIBOBJS@ @ALLOCA@)

This also fixes the problem with namespace pollution (in the
2002-02-21 CVS version "make libcheck" fails for all backends,
complaining about the md5_* functions).

This still leaves a confusing situation with sanei_auth.c, which
is under GNU GPL with SANE exception, but depends on md5.c
without such exception.  Taking a version of md5.c from glibc
(which is under LGPL) will remove the problem at least for
linking with a shared library (static linking will still be
problematic).  Another option is to take the equivalent code
from FreeBSD (this will require more work).  Or we may just do
nothing about this, as long as the code is not used by any
backend (currently only saned needs it).

-- 
Sergey Vlasov
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