[GRASS-dev] gmath and gpde update

[Glynn Clements]

Moritz Lennert wrote:

> Either make meschach a dependency, as Glynn suggested, thus just linking 
> to it which, AFAIU, does not violate GPL, and which has the added 
> (important) advantage that we do not have to maintain the code. Or 
> convince the meschach developers to relicense.

AFAIK, distributing binaries of GRASS which are linked against
meschach is a violation of the GPL, the same as linking against e.g. 
DWG.

In some cases, it may be possible to rely upon the "part of the OS"
exemption for distributions which include a meschach package. But not
all distributions include meschach (Gentoo doesn't have an ebuild for
it).

The situation is a bit different for v.in.dwg, as that's a
non-essential package, while the gmath library is quite important. Any
use of meschach would have to be implemented in such a way that
existing functionality isn't lost in versions built without.

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>