Re: [PATCH] gnu: Add nlopt.

[Roel Janssen <roel@gnu.org>]

Hi Ludo’,

I think the licensing page on the website is pretty clear:
http://ab-initio.mit.edu/wiki/index.php/NLopt_License_and_Copyright

From the page:
> The NLopt library is under the GNU Lesser General Public License
> (LGPL), and the copyrights are owned by a variety of authors.

And:
> The combination of all of this software is under the conjunction of the
> license terms, and in particular they are limited by the most
> restrictive of the licenses for the portions, which in this case is the
> LGPL. (The other portions of NLopt are under LGPL-compatible,
> less-restrictive licenses like the MIT license. So, if you remove the
> LGPL portions, which are currently code by Ladislav Luksan, the
> remainder reverts to a looser license.)

What's not clear from that page is which version of the LGPL.  But
that's cleared up in the COPYING file of the source repository.

Kind regards,
Roel Janssen


Ludovic Courtès writes:

> Hi,
>
> I have it too, in a private repo.  :-)
>
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> (define-public nlopt
>   (package
>     (name "nlopt")
>     (version "2.4.2")
>     (source (origin
>               (method url-fetch)
>               (uri (string-append "http://ab-initio.mit.edu/nlopt/nlopt-"
>                                   version ".tar.gz"))
>               (sha256
>                (base32
>                 "12cfkkhcdf4zmb6h7y6qvvdvqjs2xf9sjpa3rl3bq76px4yn76c0"))))
>     (build-system gnu-build-system)
>     (arguments
>      '(;; Shared libraries are not built by default.  They are required to
>        ;; build the Guile, Octave, and Python bindings.
>        #:configure-flags '("--enable-shared")
>
>        #:phases (alist-cons-before
>                  'configure 'pre-configure
>                  (lambda* (#:key outputs #:allow-other-keys)
>                    ;; Make sure the Scheme module refers to the library by its
>                    ;; absolute file name (we cannot do that from a snippet
>                    ;; because the expansion of @libdir@ contains
>                    ;; ${exec_prefix}.)
>                    (let ((out (assoc-ref outputs "out")))
>                      (substitute* "swig/nlopt.scm.in"
>                        (("libnlopt")
>                         (string-append out "/lib/libnlopt")))
>                      #t))
>                  %standard-phases)))
>     ;; TODO: Figure out which dependencies make sense here.
>     (inputs `(;; ("octave" ,octave)
>               ("guile" ,guile-2.0)))
>     (native-inputs `(("pkg-config" ,pkg-config)))
>     (home-page "http://ab-initio.mit.edu/nlopt/")
>     (synopsis "Library for nonlinear optimization")
>     (description
>      "NLOpt is a library for nonlinear optimization, providing a common
> interface for a number of different free optimization routines available
> online as well as original implementations of various other algorithms.")
>     (license l:lgpl2.1+)))
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>
> The reason I did not include in Guix is because of unclear licensing on
> a file.  I emailed the author in Jan. 2015 but didn’t get an answer:
>
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> I’m looking at packaging NLOpt for Guix, a free software GNU/Linux
> distribution.
>
> I noticed this paragraph in luksan/COPYRIGHT:
>
>     Subroutines PBUN, PNEW, PVAR, PSEN, Copyright ACM, 2001. The original
>     versions were published in Transactions on Mathematical Software, 
>     Vol.27, 2001, pp.193-213. Here are the author's modifications. They
>     are posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for
>     redistribution. Subroutines PLIP, PSEN, Copyright Jan Vlcek, 2007. 
>     The remaining subroutines, Copyright Ladislav Luksan, 2007. Many of  
>     sparse matrix modules were prepared by Miroslav Tuma.
>
> My understanding is that these subroutines cannot be redistributed nor
> modified by anyone; what do you think?
>
> Thank you,
> Ludovic.
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>
> Could you check if this is still relevant, and possibly get in touch
> with them?
>
> Thanks,
> Ludo’.