Bug#680738: salome-gui: links with both GPL-licensed and GPL-incompatible libraries

[Francesco Poli (wintermute)]

Package: salome-gui
Version: 6.5.0-1
Severity: serious
Justification: Policy 2.2.1

Hello Debian Science Maintainers,
thanks for your effort to reintroduce SALOME into Debian.

However, it seems to me that one of the licensing issues that
affected the previous package [1] is still present in the
current salome-gui package.

[1] http://bugs.debian.org/619662

Indeed, salome-gui is licensed under the terms of the GNU LGPL v2.1,
but links with libcos4-1/libomniorb4-1, which include [2] files
released under the terms of the GNU GPL v2 or later.

[2] http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/o/omniorb-dfsg/current/copyright

This means that package salome-gui is effectively under the GNU GPL
(v2 or later).

On the other hand, salome-gui links with liboce-* packages, which
are released under the terms of the OCTPL v6.3 [3], a GPL-incompatible
license.

[3] http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/o/oce/current/copyright

As a consequence, I would say that salome-gui (the binary package) is
currently undistributable, as it links with both a GPLv2-licensed
library and a GPLv2-incompatible one.


Possible solutions, in descending order of desirability:

 (A) Open CASCADE S.A.S. should be contacted and persuaded to
re-license Open CASCADE Technology under GPLv2-and-v3-compatible terms.

 (B) liboce-* packages should be substituted with a
GPLv2-and-v3-compatible replacement, if any is available.

 (C) omniORB copyright holders should be asked to add license
exceptions that give permission to link their work with code released
under the OCTPL.

As summarized in a recent thread on debian-science and debian-legal [4],
I am trying to push in the direction of solution (A), but I need help
in persuading Open CASCADE S.A.S. to switch to the GNU LGPL v2.1:
once again, please help!

[4] https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2012/06/msg00038.html