Hello Felix, Am 14.10.18 um 05:07 schrieb Felix Salfelder: > Dear Carsten. > > It seems, now ngspice is configured --with-readline, reverting a change in > ngspice 24-1. > > * Change readline dependency to libedit-dev
ngspice is providing a configure option to use readline which is applied to the configuration of ngspice. https://salsa.debian.org/electronics-team/ngspice/blob/debian/sid/debian/rules#L24 > I couldn't find an explanation for why this is possible now, there's only the > old paragraph from 2003 > > """ > Added Andrew Veliath patch for readline support. Using > readline with ngspice IS A VIOLATION OF GPL LICENSE, you > have been warned. The final decision is up to you. The > patch has been applied in the perspective of changing > readline library with libedit. Libedit aims to be a > replacement of readline and is covered by BSD license. > Libedit is available at the URL: libedit.sourceforge.net. > """ > > in ngspice/ChangeLog. I don't know these rather old and historical things, looking at the copyright file for the readline package I can't see why using the configuration with readline support should be a violation of the GPL as readline itself is licensed with GPL3+. https://sources.debian.org/src/readline/7.0-5/debian/copyright/ Given that readline is also available in main I wouldn't expect any legal problems. Are there any technical things why we shouldn't use readline here? Using libedit also needs ncurses5 as build and later as package dependencies. > Could you please explain what has changed since then? Apologies, if i am > missing something obvious. I don't know if something has changed here, I only know the current cirumstances and there I don't see reasons not to use readline. BTW: Any reason why this thing comes now to topic and not after this bug report was created? -- Regards Carsten Schoenert