Re: [ng-spice-frontends] libreadline, input handling and multi-threading


To ng-spice-frontends@ieee.ing.uniroma1.it
From Paolo Nenzi <pnenzi@ieee.ing.uniroma1.it>
Date Mon, 24 Apr 2000 09:55:35 +0200 (CEST)
cc ng-spice-devel@ieee.ing.uniroma1.it
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> There was only one small problem with this; it broke all the X11 output. 
> It turns out that ngspice only tests for pending X events and dispatches 
> them when spice is waiting for input (ie a keypress). As a workaround
> to this, I added a pthread to handle the X events. Like the readline
> library, the pthread library is linked in if configured with 
> "--enable-readline".
You did a gfreat job but there is a problem with libreadline is  is GPL
and cannto be linked to ngspice as this software is copyrighted with a BSD
license incompatible eith GPL. There was a discussion months ago about
this library. This reopens the letter issue. I have a draft on my disk,
can I send this one to Berkeley ?


> Paolo Nenzi mentioned that he is working on a release ngspice-rework-11.
> When he releases that, I will forward port my changes and submit a patch
> against rework-11. This will also give me a bit more time to test and
> clean up my code :-).

Before submitting the patch, check the licenses that covers the code, if
you use GPL software, it cannot be linked with our product. I am sorry,
this was discussed a lot, but I think that is important to not infringe
GPL. What about pthread ? 

> Secondly, ngspice being derived from spice3f4/5 is missing a model
> which most other spices (esp. the commercial ones) seem to have. Many
> companies release OPAMP models using a line containing something like :
> 
>     EREF 1 0 POLY(2) 8 0 5 0 (0,0.5,0.5)
> 
> when spice3f4/5 only accepts a line of this form:
> 
>     EXXXXXXX N+ N- NC+ NC- VALUE

> If nobody else is looking at this at the moment, I volunteer to take
> a look at this.

Go on, poly statements are important, but watch out at the license under
you will cover your code.

Paolo


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