Re: Running Octave from Fink?

On 11/7/12 7:24 AM, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso wrote:
> I'm CCing current GNU president Richard Stallman. He might like to
> comment further on these issues.
> 
> On 6 November 2012 17:39, David R. Morrison <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Nov 6, 2012, at 1:55 PM, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso wrote:
>>>
>>> On 6 November 2012 15:48, Dave Vasilevsky
>>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I'm not sure if this is true about osx-gcc-installer. But what I
>>>> do know is that osx-gcc-installer is definitely Non-Free. It's
>>>> not built from source, but produced by extracting files from
>>>> Apple's installer.
>>>
>>> Oh, that's a pity....
>>>
>>>> A number of these files are not Free, for example the AVFoundation
>>>> headers. I'm not even sure why it would be distributable, except
>>>> for the pragmatic reason that Apple doesn't seem to have cracked
>>>> down on it (yet).
>>>
>>> Actually, this seems to have been Apple's response:
>>>
>>>    http://kennethreitz.com/xcode-gcc-and-homebrew.html
>>>
>>> So, I guess homebrew can work without Xcode, but not with a free
>>> gcc installation. Sigh... At least Windows has mingw32; I can't
>>> believe nothing comparable exists for Mac OS X.
> 
>>
>> I'd like to understand better a distinction you are implicitly
>> making.
>>
>> Mac OS X itself is non-free, and when a person buys a Mac or
>> buys/updates OS X, they must accept certain license terms from
>> Apple. OTOH, because Mac OS X is unix-based, it is quite possible to
>> run free programs on this system.
> 
> I don't think whether it's Unix-based or not has a significant bearing
> on whether it can run free programs. Any OS can run free programs, but
> the specific problem at hand seems to be that you cannot conveniently
> get a full set of free build tools for building Octave on Mac OS X. It
> would be possible of course to undertake the work to build gcc, GNU
> make(1) and all of their dependencies freely along with Octave's own
> dependencies, but this is a complicated problem. So far, people
> generally instead agree to Apple's EULA and install Xcode.
> 
>> What is the distinction between Mac OS X itself, and the "Command
>> Line Tools for Xcode" software which was described in the post you
>> referenced?
> 
> I apparently cannot download the "command line tools for Xcode"
> package package without signing Apple's legalese, so I cannot tell you
> exactly what's in it, and if I sign the legalese, I believe I'm
> agreeing to not telling you what's in it (I remember reading NDA
> clauses in it last time I read it, but I might be mistaken). From the
> description in the blog post linked above, it appears to include
> proprietary headers that cannot be distributed freely.
> 
> The distinction between the operating system and the libraries is made
> in the GPL. The GPL allows you to build, run, and distribute the
> software in a hostile operating system, but does not extend this
> permission to non-free libraries. Such proprietary glue sometimes
> falls under the system library exception, but this depends on the
> manner in which it's distributed (the precise GPLese is libraries that
> are "in the normal form of packaging a Major Component").
> 
> So Fink is doing binary distribution for Octave, AIUI, but it's also
> linking to proprietary libraries that do not fall under the system
> library exception? I am not sure if this is the current situation, but
> I find it troubling.
> 
>> Does it make this software less free that it was built using a
>> non-free tool? Less free than it would be on a non-free OS if built
>> by a free tool?
> 
> Of course if you cannot actually use free tools to build and
> distribute there are problems. An immediately obvious problem here is
> that we are not free to distribute "command line tools for Xcode" and
> perhaps we are not free to discuss its contents either, nor are we
> free to hack it further. Perhaps we could even trim it down to less
> than 170 megabytes; a comparable "apt-get install build-essential" in
> a clean Debian install is a 40-meg download.
> 
> Until recently another very practical result of this lack of freedom
> is that you couldn't even build Octave without first signing up for
> Apple's spying tool (the Apple Developer network) and then downloading
> or otherwise acquiring about 4 gigabytes of junk (i.e. all of Xcode)
> just to get gcc and associated tools.
> 
>> I absolutely understand the GNU position that it is best for
>> everyone to use only free tools as well as free software. But if one
>> is going to work with people who choose not to do that, where does
>> one draw the line, and why?
> 
> GNU's position is quite uncompromising in this regard: we do not
> negotiate with non-free software. ;-)
> 
> However, we do help users of non-free software. A general discussion
> of GNU's stance on this problem can be found here, regarding Emacs on
> Windows:
> 
>     It is not our goal to "help Windows users" by making text editing
>     on Windows more convenient. We aim to replace proprietary
>     software, not to enhance it. So why support GNU Emacs on Windows?
> 
>     We hope that the experience of using GNU Emacs on Windows will
>     give programmers a taste of freedom, and that this will later
>     inspire them to move to a free operating system such as GNU/Linux.
>     That is the main valid reason to support free applications on
>     nonfree operating systems.
> 
>     http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/Introduction.html#Introduction
> 
> So compiling Octave for Mac OS X and Windows isn't to validate what
> those OSes are, but to give their users a taste of free software that
> they might not otherwise have.
> 
> - Jordi G. H.
> 

For -core folks only:

Eh, Octave is a royal pain in the ass to deal with, anyway, from a
packaging standpoint. :-)

They _just_ started having their libraries use meaningful versioning,
and even with that the install_name still changes with every minor
version (even when they're supposed to be compatible).  Hence the reason
for the proliferation of packages--I got tired of having to make sure to
force a rebuild when a new Octave came out, and upgrades would have
broken user-built stuff, too.

This issue came up because they don't have a standalone OS X installer
right now for their current version, and to get a current Octave version
on OS X people pretty much have to use Homebrew, Macports, or Fink to
build it if they don't want to do a hand build.  And "build" pretty much
means using Xcode, or perhaps using a FSF GCC and not being able to use
everything.

Hopefully I didn't open up a can of worms here. :-)
-- 
Alexander Hansen, Ph.D.
Fink User Liaison
My package updates: http://finkakh.wordpress.com/

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