[Jython-dev] jython, readline and GPL (again)

[Ben B. <be...@ac...>]

Hi.. just for reference, a followup to the July 1 thread on GPL-compatibility 
issues with readline support if anyone's interested.

I've patched Bernhard Bablok's readline wrappers to link with libedit.so 
instead of libreadline.so.  The libedit library has a BSD-style license and 
so it becomes completely irrelevant whether or not the FSF thinks jython is 
GPL-compatible.

The libedit library is included in debian unstable and should be in the 
forthcoming woody release; I'm not sure about other linux distributions.  The 
version in debian seems to be a CVS snapshot:

------
It was checked out from NetBSD CVS on 2001-08-21.
(CVSROOT :pserver:an...@an...:/pub/NetBSD-CVS)
 
Upstream Author: NetBSD Foundation
------

So what I've done with the debian packaging is upload lib-editline-java which 
has the same API as Bernhard's wrappers except for a couple of functions 
which are missing (that don't affect jython) and I'm now preparing jython so 
it builds and runs against lib-editline-java instead of lib-readline-java.  
I've already tested it and the editline support seems to work fine.

Anyway, I realise this might not affect a great deal of people and I realise 
that some people don't give a flying fruitcake what the FSF thinks about 
jython's GPL-compatibility.  But some distributors need to cover their 
proverbial arses (such as debian, which is large and volunteer) and make sure 
that everything is unquestionably legal, and so this is basically a note to 
tell you all that it's possible.

I've already sent the editline patches to Bernhard; if anyone's interested, I 
can mail them out.  Plot summary is that readInitFile() and parseAndBind() 
had to be commented out (not supported in libedit) and the rest was pretty 
much makefile changes.  Alternatively, you can wait a couple of days for 
lib-editline-java to get through the debian incoming queue and then find the 
packages (including sources and patches) at 
http://packages.debian.org/lib-editline-java .

Ben.

-- 

Ben Burton
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http://baasil.humbug.org.au/bab/
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A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is
absolutely fatal.
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