[Python-Dev] Building on OS X 10.4 fails (original) (raw)

Thomas Wouters thomas at xs4all.net
Wed Jan 18 10:17:24 CET 2006

On Wed, Jan 18, 2006 at 02:25:03PM +0900, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

Anthony> It sounds like configure needs to grow a test to detect Anthony> that a "libreadline" it finds is actually the crackful Anthony> "libedit" and refuse to use it if so.

FYI: Real libreadline is GPL, and rms made a point of forcing (Aladdin-licensed) Ghostscript to remove stanzas from the Makefile that allowed linking to it as a user option. Ie, this particular pain in the neck is deliberate FSF policy, to encourage use of the GPL.

[...]

As long as the link to fake libreadline succeeds and the resulting program works identically to one linked to real libreadline, he has no complaint.

I don't think this applies to Python. The Aladdin license isn't GPL-compatible, but the current PSF license is (according to rms himself.) (Only, IIRC, 1.5.2-and-earlier, 2.0.1 and 2.1.1-and-later, not 1.6, 1.6.1[*], 2.0 or 2.1.) The Ghostscript check-for-readline is a case of "you are still linking with readline, even when you aren't actually linking" -- but this isn't a problem for (most versions of) Python, because rms said it isnt. As long as the resulting Python binary is only covered by the GPL-compatible PSF license, the GPL and no GPL-incompatible licenses, any form of linking is fine, even configure-time-not-building linking.

[*] 1.6.1 is the release that contained the license change rms and his laywers wanted, but that itself doesn't make the license GPL-compatible. It apparently allows derived works from being GPL-compatible, though. 2.0 and 2.1 derive from 1.6, but 2.0.1 and 2.1.1 derive from 1.6.1.

I'm sure it makes sense to someone.

Go-figure'ly y'rs,

Thomas Wouters <thomas at xs4all.net>

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