Re: Running Octave from Fink?

[Alexander Hansen]

On 11/6/12 10:36 AM, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso wrote:
> On 6 November 2012 11:09, Alexander Hansen <address@hidden> wrote:
>> On 11/6/12 6:53 AM, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso wrote:
> 
>>> GNU's point of view is that we don't recommend people
>>> to install non-free software. That people are already running a
>>> restrictive OS is a problem, but we shouldn't be telling them to agree
>>> to legalese to run Octave. Two wrongs do not make a right.
>>
>> I'm not saying it's "right", I'm saying "It is what it is".
> 
> It is what it is... which is wrong... It's an uncomfortable position
> to face the ethical implications of one's work, and I have
> unfortunately tried to make you face this one. You're doing work on
> Fink, which is great, but you're also telling people to install Xcode,
> which is ethically wrong, because you're implicitly and sometimes
> explicitly suggesting people should agree to whatever stupid legalese
> there is in Xcode. Last time Iooked at that legalese myself, there
> were clauses about agreeing to being spied on by Apple and some
> NDA-like clauses agreeing to not divulge what you saw. We should not
> be requiring this of Octave's users.
> 
>> I was told, by someone who knows a great deal about compiling on OS X,
>> that osx-gcc-installer does _not_ give a _fully_ functional build tool
>> set for OS X, in that it lacks proprietary headers and the like which
>> are provided by Xcode.
> 
> This seems somewhat problematic. You can't freely compile code on Mac
> OS X at all? gcc cannot be freely used on that system? I cannot
> believe this to be true. Is this situation really without remedy
> unless we dedicate an inordinate amount of work to fix it?
> 
> I have been told that pure gcc without Xcode will not work on
> Macports. Is Fink in the same situation? Would it be an inordinate
> amount of work for you to simply verify if Fink can work without
> Xcode?
> 
> - Jordi G. H.
> 

(cc'ing our core developer list here)

Fink and Macports really aren't that different, fundamentally.  If they
can't do a pure gcc without Xcode, I'd assume we can't, either.

For Fink as a project it would indeed be an inordinate amount of work to
try to allow for an alternate build toolkit.  At the end of the day, we
would still have a substantial fraction of the distribution which
requires Xcode to build.

If an interested party would like to like to fork Fink to use a purely
GNU or other acceptable build toolkit, we certainly can't stop them.
-- 
Alexander Hansen, Ph.D.
Fink User Liaison
My package updates: http://finkakh.wordpress.com/