Re: [PATCH] gnu: Add nlopt.

[Roel Janssen <roel@gnu.org>]

Ludovic Courtès writes:

> Hello!
>
> Roel Janssen <roel@gnu.org> skribis:
>
>> 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.)
>
> Still, according to luksan/COPYRIGHT, “[s]ubroutines PBUN, PNEW, PVAR,
> PSEN” are “for your personal use […] [n]ot for redistribution”.
>
> So my understanding is that we need to remove those four subroutines.
> The rest in that directory is LGPLv2.1+.
>
> WDYT?

I agree to your understanding.

A little later in the same file I found: "This library (with exception
of PBUN, PNEW, PVAR, PSEN) is a free software".

> I don’t see it at
> <https://libreplanet.org/wiki/List_of_software_that_does_not_respect_the_Free_System_Distribution_Guidelines>.
> Debian has a package: <https://packages.debian.org/source/sid/nlopt>.
> Could you check if they apply any patches?

I haven't found any patches.  So I dug a little deeper and attempted to
remove them myself with a patch, but I haven't been able to find these
subroutines.

I ran the following commands on the root of the source directory:
grep -i -r "pbun" .
grep -i -r "pmin" .
grep -i -r "psen" .
grep -i -r "pvar" .

And I haven't found the routines.  So I think we're safe.  That could
also be why Debian doesn't have a patch for this either.

> Besides, I suggest reusing the bits about Guile bindings from the patch
> I sent.

Shall I prepare a new patch?

Kind regards,
Roel Janssen