Re: [Plplot-devel] Next release

[Rafael L. <lab...@ps...>]

* João Cardoso <jc...@fe...> [2003-02-28 15:57]:

> Rafael, if you have time, could you setup things for this :-?
> Then I only have to commit src/plgriddata.c, examples/c/x21c.c, and the 
> changes to nn/delauny.c (and the patch file itself).

Please, commit all the necessary files to the CVS repository, including the
nn and csa ones (should we create a lib/ directory for that in the CVS tree?
in this case, you could put the files under lib/nn/ and lib/csa/).  I will
then make the changes in configure.ac and create the necessary
Makefile.am's.

> (1)-Another point that I have not digged into is the float/double issue. 
> While Qhull can be compiled for both float or double (we can check for 
> this at configure time), nn and csa use doubles; one might have to disable
> nn/csa if the user wants to compile plplot with floats.

Is that really necessary?  Can't you cast the values returned by nn/csa with
PLFLOAT?

> (2)- Please take a look at the license. It looks a bit confusing for a 
> civilian.  When I ask Pavel (nn/csa author's) for a clarification, he 
> said:
> 
> >This licence does _not_ explicitely demand
> >
> > <BEGIN excerpt from GPL>
> > b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole 
> >    or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to
> >    be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of
> >    this License.
> > <END>
> >
> > Therefore I would be happy if we quietly implied that "BOTH SOURCE AND 
> > OBJECT CODE ARE MADE FREELY AVAILABLE WITHOUT CHARGE"
> > refers to the _modified_ code only, not the whole application it is used
> > in. I _think_ it should be legally safe to use this code in commercial
> > applications as long as the modified code retains copyright and is 
> > made public.

Looking at the License statement in the README file and Pavel's comments
above, I think that nn and csa can be considered free software.  If you are
really concerned about this, we can ask in the mailing list debian-legal.

-- 
Rafael