[Ecls-list] Project status and changes (please read)

[Michael Wood]

Hi

On 10 October 2013 23:51, Matthew Mondor <mm_lists at pulsar-zone.net> wrote:

> On Mon, 7 Oct 2013 10:54:01 +0200
> Juan Jose Garcia-Ripoll <juanjose.garciaripoll at gmail.com> wrote:
>
[...]

>  > * I am not going to change ECL's license. LGPL3's restrictions on web
> > applications seem stupid to me and, as experience has shown, making such
> a
> > move will only make things worse. Already LGPL2 is a hindrance, but I can
> > live with it.
>
> This is something I'd like to understand better: what restrictions does
> LGPL3 add on network services?  Does it have to do with the fact that
> web applications disclose source, versus my example of using a web
> server compiled using ECL?
>
> Some here might already know my preference for MIT/BSD licenses, but in
> this case even if ECL was relicensed I don't see how it could solve the
> dependency on LGPL3 GMP/MPIR anyway...


I have no experience with GMP or similar libraries, but would switching to
a BSD/MIT licensed library solve this problem?  I see there are a couple
mentioned here (although maybe OpenSSL doesn't count):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrary-precision_arithmetic#Libraries

Also:
http://bsdmp.org/
http://crd-legacy.lbl.gov/~dhbailey/mpdist/ (although the license for this
one appears to want you to fill in your contact details, despite looking
like a BSD license?)

Of course BSDMP explicitly says that the API is not compatible with GMP,
and the others are also probably not compatible.

 > * This said, GMP v5 is insufficient for several platforms but I will
> > maintain it as it is. *On platforms where GMP becomes obsolete, it will
> > shift to building with "C"* (i.e. no optimized assembly code). I tested
> > this on Cygwin/64 and it works -- *indeed it is part of the source tree
> > right now*. If you need a better GMP, build ECL with the one that your
> > operating system provides and be tied to its license.
>
> This seems like a good compromise to me.
>

-- 
Michael Wood <esiotrot at gmail.com>
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