Re: [htdig-dev] Licenses..

[Gilles D. <gr...@sc...>]

According to Robert Ribnitz:
> I am in the process of making my 'htdig' package (the one based on  3.1.6)
> lintian-clean (Lintian is a special program that checks for conformance 
> of the package to the debian packaging guidelines).
> 
> I found the following licenses (which I need to list in copyright):
> 
> Berkeley DB      Sleepycat license (4 clause BSD license listed in the 
> code, the current sleepycat license is 3 clause BSD)
> 
> your extensions
> to Berkeley DB   no idea (3 clause BSD?)
> 
> Config.guess/
> Config.sub          GPL Version 2                
> 
> htdig (3.1.6)       GPL Version 2

My understanding, though I may be wrong (Geoff Hutchison could provide
the definitive answer), is that the 3.1.x code base does not include
any extensions or customisations to the Sleepycat Berkeley DB code,
so it should be possible to update to a newer DB version (and license)
with minimal difficulty.  Exactly what licenses can now be applied to
the old version of DB bundled with 3.1.6 is probably more a question
for Sleepycat than for us, as I don't believe we've changed it.

It is also my understanding that Sleepycat's license for DB is compatible
with GPL, but not LGPL.

It's a whole other ball of wax for the 3.2 code base.  There, Neal
negotiated a special license with Sleepycat that allows us to distribute
our modified DB code with the LGPL'ed 3.2 ht://Dig code, provided the
bundled DB code is used only for ht://Dig or libhtdig.  If it's unbundled,
it reverts to Sleepycat's standard license.

Neal and Geoff, please chime in if you have anything to add.

> Config.guess/Config.sub are used to compile the Berkeley DB. Also, what 
> exactly are your extensions to Berkeley DB (that prevent replacing that 
> version with something more recent?).
> 
> I also replaced Config.guess/Config.sub with a more current version (2004).
> 
> At the moment,  the program still compiles with gcc/g++ 3.3,  with 
> deprecation warnings. I don't know whether it will still compile with 
> gcc-3.4

Our standard advice for compiling 3.1.6 under gcc/g++ 3.x is in
http://www.htdig.org/FAQ.html#q3.8

I don't know if replacing Config.guess/Config.sub makes those environment
variables unnecessary or not, but they are supposed to suppress the
deprecation warnings (unless there are new warnings in 3.3 or 3.4).
Keep us posted on how that all turns out.  Thanks.

-- 
Gilles R. Detillieux              E-mail: <gr...@sc...>
Spinal Cord Research Centre       WWW:    http://www.scrc.umanitoba.ca/
Dept. Physiology, U. of Manitoba  Winnipeg, MB  R3E 3J7  (Canada)