Re: [Fwd: Re: CUPS Arabic support ?]

[Behdad Esfahbod <behdad at cs dot toronto dot edu>]

I still think there's no problem, please note, FriBidi's source
IS available, and they can provide it, or simply refer to
FriBidi's pages.  Whatever code Arabeyes contributes to CUPS is
subject to relicensing.

Speaking generally (not limited to CUPS), GNU FriBidi is a fairly
new library needed for i18n that is going to be used by many
applications.  It's sane to assume it installed on Linux
machines.  Right now GNOME and AbiWord use it, and many smaller
applications, like mplayer, have compile time options to link to
it.  And any application using that should give a compile-time
option to exclude it.  I'm also thinking about a system to
disable it at running time if not available.  Still I think a
conditional activation partly solves the problem, so for example
you won't get bidi on a non-free-software version of CUPS running
on a PocketPC.

Shachar, you here right?  Can you please use your expertize and
let us know what are the conditions for linking statically to an
LGPLed library?  I know that LGPL implies "being able to upgrade
the library".  So, it means that for static linkage you should
have access to the source code, and just that, right?

I try to check it later myself with fsf.org and let people here
know.

behdad

On Mon, 24 May 2004, Anmar Oueja wrote:

> I think it is  Behdad's turn to answer this question :).
>
> Behdad what do you think ? and how can we accomodate CUPS. Please note
> that since BIDI is a fundemental tool for adapting Arabic, Persian and
> Hebrew it is important that we address this matter permenantly so we can
> go after more projects and more applications.
>
> Thanks
>
> Anmar
>
> Ahmad Khalifa wrote:
> >
> >
> > here is the reply...
> > whats next ??
> >
> >
> > ak.
> >
> > -------- Original Message --------
> > Subject: Re: CUPS Arabic support ?
> > Date: Sun, 23 May 2004 17:59:26 -0400
> > From: Michael Sweet <
> > Organization: Easy Software Products
> > Newsgroups: cups.development
> >
> > Ahmad Khalifa wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> Michael Sweet wrote:
> >>
> >>> It is not a technical issue, but a legal one.  Any core code in
> >>> CUPS MUST be owned by us or available under an unrestrictive license
> >>> (i.e. BSD-style) since we relicense the code under other licenses
> >>> (such as the one that Apple uses, although there are other companies
> >>> licensing the code as well)
> >>>
> >>> Also, depending on an ALPHA-quality piece of software
> >>> for a core part of CUPS printing is also something we do not want to
> >>> do.
> >>>
> >>> In short, in order for us to accept your patch, it must be
> >>> unencumbered and not depend upon a third-party library that cannot
> >>> be included in the CUPS source code.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ok, what about LGPL ?
> >> you can do whatever you want with it.
> >
> >
> > Not exactly.  There is an implied requirement that in order to
> > comply with the LGPL you need to link dynamically to the library
> > or provide source.  Also, you can't re-license the code under
> > different terms, which is a requirement for us for any core code
> > that we use - the licensee might be shipping on an embedded
> > platform where source and shared libaries are simply not possible.
> >
> >> here is what FriBidi's author had to say..
> >>
> >> behdad esfahbod wrote:
> >> Since FriBidi is LGPLed, there should be absolutely no problem
> >> with relicensing CUPS.  That's why FriBidi is LGPLed.
> >> Technically, even Microsoft can ship FriBidi in Windows with no
> >> licensing problem as long as they don't touch the code.  Even if
> >> they touch the code, all they need to do is to give the modified
> >> source code of FriBidi too, but nothing else.
> >
> >
> > That's not our interpretation - shared libraries/DLLs allow for
> > this, but as long as there is no statement allowing for static
> > linking (such as that provided by FLTK - http://www.fltk.org/)
> > you can't link it statically without providing source, and that
> > makes it impossible for us to use it for a core part of CUPS.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Developer mailing list
> > Developer at arabeyes dot org
> > http://lists.arabeyes.org/mailman/listinfo/developer
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>

--behdad
  behdad.org