Re: [ng-spice] Readline Response


To ng-spice@ieee.ing.uniroma1.it
From Manu Rouat <emmanuel.rouat@wanadoo.fr>
Date Fri, 27 Aug 1999 19:39:47 +0200
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Kev wrote:

> I don't disagree with that, however I think we are still in a grey area. If 
>I
> deliver a working standalone program that is capable of dynamically loading
> extra funcionality at the customer/user site but does not depend on doing so
> (and I don't deliver the extras either), am I breaking any license 
>agreement?

I think that you are, but I agree with you: it is a grey area.

> 
> Perl would seem to fall into this category, i.e. you can quite easily 
>plug-in
> extra bits of your own, but perl itself runs without them.

Ys but the perl licence is not GPL.

> 
> > This means that we would need the readline library to be LGPL'd rather 
>than GPL'd
> > to link ngspice against it (or ngspice to be GPL'd)
> 
> Has anyone asked Berkley about releasing a GPL'd version of Spice 3? (They
> may do this for a small financial consideration, commercial release is ~$250
> I think).

It might be worth asking , but I doubt that they would agree. Berkeley has 
never
been really a fan on the GPL ;-) - This would also require all patch 
contributors
to change their licence as well (Berkeley isn't the only copyright holder)

> 
> Also, if the ng-spice project was split into a GPL'd user-interface and 
>generic
> simulation interface, with the BSD Spice 3 as one of a number of possible
> (dynamically loadable) simulation engines, does that break any license 
>agreement?


To me the best arrangement would be like linux: the simulator is GPL'd but
allows plug-ins (for proprietary models for instance)

manu


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