fenics team mailing list archive

[Andre Massing <massing@xxxxxxxxx>]

Anders Logg wrote:
> Here's an update on the status for getting packages ready for
> inclusion in the next Ubuntu LTS release.
>
> 1. Johannes needs all releases to be ready by Monday. That will give
> him a couple of days to prepare the packages.
>
> Which releases do we want to make? There have been JIT compiler fixes
> in FFC and UFL that would be good to get in, and also updates in
> DOLFIN.
>
> We have also made changes to Instant. The buildbot is failing for
> Instant but I don't know why.
>
> 2. Unfortunately the DOLFIN package needs to be build without CGAL and
> ParMETIS.
>
> The reason is that both CGAL and ParMETIS are in the non-free section
> of Debian. I knew from before that ParMETIS has a non-free license
> (which makes an even stronger case for SCOTCH) but I don't know why
> CGAL is in non-free. Anyone else knows why?

I still struggling with this license jungle but there is a rather long 
thread why Debian consider the QPL library as not compliant with the 
DSFG  (Debian Free Sofware Guidlines), but to cite from

http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/05/msg00992.html

"The QPL requires that all changes are sent to the original
author upon request, and that all license disputes are settled in
Amsterdam City Court by the laws of the Netherlands.  Both of these
restrictions are non-DFSG-free.
"

or see the general discussion on QPL

http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/04/msg00233.html
.
> If DOLFIN is compiled against CGAL or ParMETIS then the DOLFIN package
> would depend on a non-free package, which would place DOLFIN in the
> contrib section, which for technical Debian reasons places DOLFIN in
> the "NEW" queue, which means Johannes cannot upload but must get
> someone else with higher "Debian security clearance" to upload and
> that will take a while. There would also be a similar problem for the
> FEniCS meta package.
>
> So DOLFIN will be built without CGAL and ParMETIS in Ubuntu, but will
> be available with these dependencies in Launchpad PPA.

That's a bit of a pity that CGAL has this kind of strange license mix.

> We should sort out our dependencies for future releases.

I am also wondering whether using a dynamically loadable library instead 
of shared library would influence the decision which category a package 
will be put in...

> --
> Anders
>
>
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