On Wed, Jul 3, 2013 at 5:34 PM, Bradley M. Kuhn <bk...@ebb.org> wrote: > On (b), I think the discussion about apt needing to be (effectively) > AGPLv3-or-later to continue using BDB is salient. I, for one, would > like to see such a thing, but I'm a biased party who co-authored AGPLv3 > and believe in its policy goals; I'd like to see more software under > AGPLv3! But, I also see it from the point of view of Debian developers > who might feel this sort of policy change is too drastic a move to the > strongest copyleft available.
So, as I see wrong bits a few times in this thread now: a) APT is GPL2+ licensed and will stay that way out of no other choice as I bet its more likely that hell freezes over than that we track down every contributor since 1997 to ask for an agreement for a license change … (yes, we could switch to GPL3+ "for free", but it's not like we would gain anything from it – beside generating problems for GPL2-only dependees on libapt of course) b) src:apt depends on libdb-dev for apt-ftparchive which is shipped in apt-utils. I doubt it is insanely hard to switch to another database if we would need to – the database is used as a cache, so not even strictly needed – but GPL2+ is compatible with AGPL so I don't see why. (Also, you can't interact with apt-ftparchive over the network, so no practical difference) Other parts of APT have no relation to libdb whatsoever. Sidenote: Debian infrastructure (aka dak) isn't depending on apt-ftparchive anymore ["just" "some" derivatives use it nowadays], so the binary is even less important than you might think/remember. Disclaimer: This is not a remark regarding AGPL. I am just trying to correct misunderstandings in regards to APT. Best regards David Kalnischkies -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/caaz6_fcfhgmkmx6a4hdvv5ysp_+siyqwfn7gdfk+j3bmbcv...@mail.gmail.com
