On Tue, Nov 04, 2014 at 10:28:04AM +0100, Joris van Rantwijk wrote: > On 2014-11-04, Svenn Are Bjerkem wrote: > > How on earth has freehdl managed to get into the debian repository if > > the IEEE libraries prevent ghdl from being there? > > The same way the old GHDL package got in, by including the following > text in the copyright file: > > In the source ieee directory, several standard VHDL headers say "all > rights reserved". However, these standard headers are actually not > copyrightable because they merely define an interface, and do NOT > fall under any category of copyrightable works as defined by U.S. > Code Title 17 §102(a), and in fact is specifically excluded by > §102(b). > > I'm not sure what to make of this. In any case I am absolutely not a > legal expert.
Generally, simple descriptions of APIs (like header files) are not considered copyrightabler, notwithstanding that questionable decision in Oracle v. Google in May this year. In any case, as far as Debian is concerned the ftpmasters have the last say on the matter. Seeing that freehdl is in with the same justification I don't see why they would decide differently again for ghdl. Also note that the current package was not removed for license reasons. > I want to provide a technically sound GHDL package for Debian. > If possible, I'd love to have it included in the official Debian > distribution. If any Debian developer is willing to sponsor it, I'd > love to work with them. I'm definitely willing to help with that. I was a bit dismayed to find the Debian package in such disrepair just about when I was finally going to need VHDL simulation. Then I found your packaging for 0.31 and it compiled just fine for me (using gcc 4.8 sources with gnat 4.9). It's not possible to get it in before the freeze for jessie which starts tomorrow already if I'm not mistaken. It might be possible to get a freeze exception once it's in unstable and in good shape. As it currently stands, jessie would ship without ghdl since the current package does not even install. Andreas _______________________________________________ Ghdl-discuss mailing list [email protected] https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/ghdl-discuss
