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

[Alexander Hansen]

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/