Re: [Savannah-users] Yet another gpl license question

[Joel J. Adamson]

Joseph Pesco <address@hidden> writes:

>  A fair number of the scripts are `!/bin/bash', and one possibly two
> use the `select' command.  I'm something of a CLI purest, and `select'
> really is too right wing.  (UI is after all for people who can't
> handle the truth.)  Even though I'm no expert on Bashisms if I'm going
> to call on Bash I'll use Bashisms for all they're worth, except of
> course any that hint at elements of user interface. There are no
> binaries of my own making in the project as of yet. I've followed the
> recommendations for the use of gplv3.

Can you help me to understand your question?  You don't want to include
external programs, because all of your project is scripts that depend on
external programs.  This is as I understand it, then a question of
compatibility across different systems that may have those programs
installed.  You have a few options:

1. Rewrite your program so that it doesn't require those programs (not a
good idea[1])
2. Expect users to have those programs installed (perfectly reasonable
and saves you lots of trouble, including licensing)
3. Include them with your package

My opinion: every software package has requirements; this is a good
thing.  Every package manager is designed around it.  One of the best
things about software freedom is that we can freely reuse things
(i.e. as long as we're not depending on non-free software we can build
our civil technological society).  The simple technical side of it is
that it's much easier just to install a properly-configured .rpm or .deb
than to accidentally re-install programs that you already have.  This is
my main reason for avoiding Sage[2].

Joel


Footnotes: 
[1]  http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/interfacechapter.html

[2]  http://www.sagemath.org/

-- 
Joel J. Adamson <address@hidden>
Servedio Lab
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
http://www.unc.edu/~adamsonj

Free Software Foundation Member #8164
Join the FSF: http://www.fsf.org/jf?referrer=8164

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