Re: [PATCH] gnu: Add sparse.

[Ludovic Courtès]

Cyril Roelandt <address@hidden> skribis:

> On 02/26/2013 09:13 AM, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>> Cyril Roelandt<address@hidden>  skribis:
>>
>>> This patch adds sparse.
>>
>> Thanks!  Would it make sense to put it in linux.scm?
>>
>
> It's not really Linux-specific, even though it is mainly used by Linux
> hackers. I think it's used by smatch, a static analysis tool developed
> by Dan Carpenter, that can be used on any piece of C code, for
> instance. It's also used in the test-suite of git.

Yeah, that still sounds Linuxish despite the intent, but I’m fine with
sparse.scm.

>>> I had to add the Open Software License to guix/licenses.scm. Debian
>>> does not think of it as a Free Software license, but I think it's OK
>>> with GNU.
>>
>> The page at<https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#OSL>
>> contains says it’s free but mentions worrisome details:
>>
>>     Recent versions of the Open Software License have a term which
>>     requires distributors to try to obtain explicit assent to the
>>     license. This means that distributing OSL software on ordinary FTP
>>     sites, sending patches to ordinary mailing lists, or storing the
>>     software in an ordinary version control system, is arguably a
>>     violation of the license and would subject you to possible
>>     termination of the license.  [...]
>>
>> We’re not distributing it, just distributing the build recipes.
>> However, would it be a violation to distribute pre-built binaries on
>> Hydra?  Could you check that?
>
> Indeed, this is the ninth clause. Maybe I should email the current
> sparse maintainer and ask him ?

Maybe rather address@hidden, since they wrote the above page.

Interestingly, the ninth clause [0] refers to the “Original Work”, which
is only vaguely defined and could be interpreted as referring to the
source code, which we won’t distribute anyway.  IANAL, though...

BTW, license.scm would have to distinguish between versions of the OSL.

Thanks,
Ludo’.

[0] http://opensource.org/licenses/OSL-3.0