[Mageia-dev] License issues with readline (MariaDB)

Colin Guthrie mageia at colin.guthr.ie
Thu Dec 29 20:49:31 CET 2011


'Twas brillig, and Maarten Vanraes at 29/12/11 16:20 did gyre and gimble:
> Op donderdag 29 december 2011 15:28:58 schreef Maarten Vanraes:
> 
> as suspected, MariaDB cannot license as GPLv2+
> 
> ok, so what do we do:
> 
> A) follow upstream, and use bundled GPLv2 readline to link static against
> B) go back to readline-v5
> C) repackage debian's version of readline-gplv2 (afaik its a v5 maintained)
> D) ignore all this legal crap and just link shared with readline v6
> E) try to use libedit, but the spec files contain buildConflicts with it, so i'm 
> guessing it's for a good reason.
> 
> 
> debian does B)
> fedora does either A) or D), but definately static linked
> 
> 
> tbh: even though it's not right, my preference goes to D)
> 
> my mariadb latest fix is just waiting to be pushed...
> 
> please, i need comments and opinions ASAP!

I understand the desire to do D, but it really, really should not be
done like that. If we cannot adhere to our own licenses, then how do we
expect any traditionally non-foss people to do it? We have to lead by
example.

So personally I'd go with A and if/when another readline related GPLv3
issue crops up in the future, then we switch over to C.

Col


-- 

Colin Guthrie
colin(at)mageia.org
http://colin.guthr.ie/

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