[gdal-dev] GDAL linked against CFITSIO on debian/ubuntu

[Chiara Marmo]

Hello Sebastiaan,

me again about GDAL and CFITSIO. :)

> 
> gdal (1.4.1-5) unstable; urgency=low
> 
>   * libcfitsio3 library is now GPL on Debian, so disabled due to
>     incompatibility with GDAL copyright.
>     (closes: #422537)
> 
> The linked bugreport has more backgrounds:
> 
> https://bugs.debian.org/422537

If I understand correctly, this bug is pretty old.
I have checked the CFITSIO ChangeLog [1] and I'm under the impression that, starting from CFITSIO 3.26 this issue is no longer there:

"
   - replaced all the source code in CFITSIO that was distributed under the
     GNU General Public License with freely available code.  In particular,
     the  gzip file compression and uncompression code was replaced by the
     zlib compression library.  Thus, beginning with this version 3.26 of CFITSIO,
     other software applications may freely use CFITSIO without necessarily
     incurring any GNU licensing requirement.  See the License.txt file for
     the CFITSIO licensing requirements.
"

The Buster version of CFITSIO is 3.45. I've contacted the CFITSIO people for clarifications.

Do you mind if I open a new issue on the Debian bug tracker (if relevant) after their answer?

Thanks for reading.
 
Best regards,
Chiara

[1] https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/FTP/software/fitsio/c/docs/changes.txt

--- 
Chiara Marmo
Ingénieur de Recherche GEOPS - Paris Sud-11
Bât 509
Tel: +33 (0)1 69 15 49 03