On Tue, Nov 04, 2014 at 07:07:06PM +0100, Tristan Gingold wrote: > On 04/11/14 07:57, Joris van Rantwijk wrote: > >The problem with getting GHDL into debian is the IEEE library. It is > >not DFSG-free, to put it mildly. I don't see any way that it could be > >uploaded to the debian archive, and it does not seem very useful to > >have a GHDL package without those libraries. > > Rewriting ieee.std_logic_1164 shouldn't be a lot of work, but would that > be enough ? Can be propose a post-install download ?
I think I read in some discussion that ghdl doesn't actually use the bodies of these packages but provides internal implementations of those. Do I remember wrong? For the record, the current license (the files in the ghdl source aren't currently updated to contain this license header) is: | This source file is an essential part of IEEE Std 1076-2008, | IEEE Standard VHDL Language Reference Manual. Verbatim copies of this | source file may be used and distributed without restriction. | Modifications to this source file as permitted in IEEE Std 1076-2008 | may also be made and distributed. All other uses require permission | from the IEEE Standards Department([email protected]). | All other rights reserved. http://standards.ieee.org/news/2013/ieee_1076_vhdl.html http://standards.ieee.org/downloads/1076/1076-2008/ I told Joris in private mail that this is almost free according to Debian guidelines, except that modifications are only allowed within a limited range. Well, also that it has a bit of ambiguous language (modifications may be distributed, but does that mean the modified files or really just the modification, i.e. a patch?). I now realized that it is also missing the permission to distribute binaries compiled from these sources. These limitations are no practical problem for ghdl itself, just for inclusion in Debian with its high standard of software freeness. That is if the copyright on the spec files is actually relevant. Copyright requires some creative work and for computer programs even the most minimal creativity is generally considered sufficient. But we're talking about standard packages. If the standard says that package P contains a function F with result type X and two arguments of type Y, then writing that declaration does not involve any creativity just mere typing work. Possibility A) The license does not matter because the spec files (again, I assume bodies are not compiled) are not copyrightable due to lack of creativity. Possibility B) Let's strip the comments except the copyright header to remove any traces of creativity, then same as A). Possibility C) Let's write our own uncreative spec files adhering to the standard. A bit of work, but we wouldn't depend on any legal interpretation and the compiled simulations are also unquestionably distributable. For the sake of completeness, the undesirable now-that's-probably-going-too-far options: Possibility D) We may distribute, but the files aren't DFSG free, so put the ghdl package in Debian's non-free section. Possibility E) Distribute without the standard files and have the package download them on installation. Andreas _______________________________________________ Ghdl-discuss mailing list [email protected] https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/ghdl-discuss
