Building On Linux

[Mathias Bauer <Ma...@gmx.net>]

Hi,

I'm trying to get a build without (L)GPL components. I'm making good
progress, but I'm unsure about the limitations we have.

Let's consider an arbitrary library, e.g. neon.

In my build I have disabled neon and so the build system neither builds
the neon module nor the webdav UCP component in the ucb module. But I
have neon on my system, so I could use it, and I wonder whether we could
also use it in an "official" build from ooo.apache.org.

configure has an option called "--with-system-neon" where the neon
library and the neon headers are expected to be installed elsewhere.
With that option this external neon is used to build the webdav UCP
component in the ucb module. The resulting builds does not contain any
part of neon, and it will run only on a system that has the same neon
version installed.

Would that build be compatible to the Apache license restrictions?

In that case I would not disable neon in case a "non copyleft" build is
required, but automatically set the "--with-system-neon" option.

The same is true for a lot of other libraries.

Another point is EPM.
The current build system does not create installation sets (packages)
when EPM is disabled. Again there is an option to use EPM from the
system. EPM is just used as a build tool and it is used as a build
prerequisite like the compiler or the linker - so are we allowed to use
that for a release build from ooo.apache.org?

Regards,
Mathias

Re: Building On Linux

[Mathias Bauer <Ma...@gmx.net>]

On 18.07.2011 11:42, Mathias Bauer wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I'm trying to get a build without (L)GPL components. I'm making good
> progress, but I'm unsure about the limitations we have.
> 
> Let's consider an arbitrary library, e.g. neon.
> 
> In my build I have disabled neon and so the build system neither builds
> the neon module nor the webdav UCP component in the ucb module. But I
> have neon on my system, so I could use it, and I wonder whether we could
> also use it in an "official" build from ooo.apache.org.
> 
> configure has an option called "--with-system-neon" where the neon
> library and the neon headers are expected to be installed elsewhere.
> With that option this external neon is used to build the webdav UCP
> component in the ucb module. The resulting builds does not contain any
> part of neon, and it will run only on a system that has the same neon
> version installed.
> 
> Would that build be compatible to the Apache license restrictions?
> 
> In that case I would not disable neon in case a "non copyleft" build is
> required, but automatically set the "--with-system-neon" option.
> 
> The same is true for a lot of other libraries.
> 
> Another point is EPM.
> The current build system does not create installation sets (packages)
> when EPM is disabled. Again there is an option to use EPM from the
> system. EPM is just used as a build tool and it is used as a build
> prerequisite like the compiler or the linker - so are we allowed to use
> that for a release build from ooo.apache.org?
> 
> Regards,
> Mathias
> 

I forgot: neon is available under LGPL, EPM under GPL.

Regards,
Mathias

Re: Building On Linux

[Jürgen Schmidt <jo...@googlemail.com>]

On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 11:42 AM, Mathias Bauer <Ma...@gmx.net>wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'm trying to get a build without (L)GPL components. I'm making good
> progress, but I'm unsure about the limitations we have.
>
> Let's consider an arbitrary library, e.g. neon.
>
> In my build I have disabled neon and so the build system neither builds
> the neon module nor the webdav UCP component in the ucb module. But I
> have neon on my system, so I could use it, and I wonder whether we could
> also use it in an "official" build from ooo.apache.org.
>
> configure has an option called "--with-system-neon" where the neon
> library and the neon headers are expected to be installed elsewhere.
> With that option this external neon is used to build the webdav UCP
> component in the ucb module. The resulting builds does not contain any
> part of neon, and it will run only on a system that has the same neon
> version installed.
>

a good question and if we could use a system version it would be very good
until we may find a better alternative. But i am not sure if all patches are
already contributed back or better are accepted. I know that Kai Sommerfeld
always tried to contribute things back but maybe there are still patches
open.

>
> Would that build be compatible to the Apache license restrictions?
>
> In that case I would not disable neon in case a "non copyleft" build is
> required, but automatically set the "--with-system-neon" option.
>
> The same is true for a lot of other libraries.
>

i guess it would definitely help us faster to get a first version faster.

Juergen


>
> Another point is EPM.
> The current build system does not create installation sets (packages)
> when EPM is disabled. Again there is an option to use EPM from the
> system. EPM is just used as a build tool and it is used as a build
> prerequisite like the compiler or the linker - so are we allowed to use
> that for a release build from ooo.apache.org?
>
> Regards,
> Mathias
>