Re: The Guile license and the use of LGPL libs (like GMP).

[Marius Vollmer]

Bruce Korb <address@hidden> writes:

> Marius Vollmer wrote:
> 
> > >   2) Use GMP, but have a configure switch...
> > 
> > I think this is acceptable.  A not-GMP-using libguile would be
> > technically inferior to the default libguile, but that can only be
> > expected.  If you want the good stuff, agree to our terms.
> 
> Then you cannot complain if a proprietary product uses a GMP-using
> libguile.

I could complain... but I understand that it would look like a scam to
the other side.

> The problem is that the person installing libguile is not
> necessarily the installer of the proprietary produce.  e.g., SuSE
> distributes Linux with a pre-packaged libguile.  The proprietary
> product installation should do what?  Check for GMP-enablement in
> libguile and choke, or just install?

As you say, we can handle this with giving distinct names to libguile,
depending on its license.

> > If it is not too much hassle,
> 
> Methinks it is.  I also doubt any of my "clients" use big nums,
> but I put no constraints on their Scheme code, either.

Without bignums, fixnums would overflow into floats.  So we would have
to have two versions of 'bignums' anyway, whether they are implemented
with floats or with our current bignum code.  Assuming that our
current bignum code is correct, it wouldn't need much maintainance
itself.

> > What I'm trying to say is that we should not make
> > ourselves a lot of work to keep the fall back be efficient.
> 
> Fallback isn't the issue.  You're talking about a new
> library with new usage restrictions.  Think:  new name, too.

Yep, this occured to me... but which one should be plain "libguile"?
The one with GMP or the one without?  Also, we already have API
variants: with or without threads, with or without heavy-weight
debugging support.  Maybe we should give distinct names to them also?