Re: [fink-core] Running Octave from Fink?

[edmund ronald]

On Sat, Nov 10, 2012 at 12:04 AM, Alexander Hansen <address@hidden> wrote:

On 11/9/12 3:39 PM, edmund ronald wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, Nov 9, 2012 at 10:54 PM, Alexander Hansen

> <address@hidden <mailto:address@hidden>> wrote:
>
>     On 11/9/12 12:38 PM, edmund ronald wrote:
>     > This discussion started with Gnu Octave. Octave is an interpreter, so
>     > there are no downstream products.
>
>     Not quite true.  Octave also has headers and libraries, and people can
>     write utilities that build against those, and any distribution would
>     necessarily involve Octave's license.
>
>     In what way can Apple's shenanigans on
>     > OS X create issues for users here? They are executing their code
>     on the
>     > same non-free machine it was compiled on, and they have already agreed
>     > to said non-free environment.
>     >
>
>
> I agree there is an issue, but OS X seems to be a poisoned well anyway
> from the point of view of free software; I don't think any reasonable
> amount of precautions could work against the world's most litigious
> company. So maybe a warning is what is really required - I would suggest
> "by abiding by the terms of the Xcode license you are violating the GPL
> ***if you redistribute any results of the compilation***, and your
> license to Octave would be cancelled. And maybe this is exactly what the
> bright legal minds at Apple want.
>
> Edmund
>
>

And how does one do this?

In _Fink_ we use compiler wrapper scripts so that perhaps we can annoy
our users with having this warning pop up every single time they try to
build a GPL'ed package.  Well, since the "fink" tool is itself GPLv2,
maybe we'd have to do it for every operation--or we could switch licenses.

But if users are building stuff by hand, then they're not going to see
any such warning unless every GPL'ed package encodes a compiler
detection step.

--
Alexander Hansen, Ph.D.
Fink User Liaison
My package updates: http://finkakh.wordpress.com/

If you actually take my remark seriously, and take this stuff seriously, then I think RMS himself should have my reasoning checked through, and then the  license of Fink needs to be modified suitably. This is an arms race between adverse viewpoints on software property, and I guess the GPL4 or whatever would need to be modified to prevent behavior like Apple's on a system that bundles free software, and then Apple would find another trick, ad nauseam.

Edmund