Re: gnu readline / license

[Hans-Bernhard B. <br...@ph...>]

On Wed, 2 Jun 2004, Johannes Zellner wrote:

> Debian's gnuplot comes w/o gnu readline, which is very bad in my
> opinion. 

As a matter of fact, *all* binary distributions of gnuplot would
have to come without GNU readline compiled in.  Otherwise, they'ld
be in violation of the GPL.

I've seen mention of a program called 'rlwrap' (or similar) solving this
by a wrapper layer utilizing GNU readline, to go between non-GPL programs
like gnuplot and the console.  Maybe Thimo can package gnuplot to use
that.

> Is there a chance to get the license changed, so that debian can ship
> gnuplot with the gnu readline?

Essentially: no.  Neither side of this conflict appears willing to bugde.
That has been tried in the past, but never succeeded.

Which leaves us with essentially two ways to proceed:

1) use libeditline, the LGPL alternative to libreadline
2) extend our own readline.c considerably

I have my doubts that 2) is feasible.  So: has any of us given libeditline
a try?  If so, please speak up with some results.  If not, someone should
do that soon.

-- 
Hans-Bernhard Broeker (br...@ph...)
Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.