[php-maint] Possible to include GMP in libapache2-mod-php5?

[Steve Langasek]

On Wed, Jul 25, 2007 at 08:17:28AM +0200, sean finney wrote:
> On Wednesday 25 July 2007 03:18:27 am Raphael Geissert wrote:
> > > The bad thing I most worry about is php5 being updated and the module no
> > > longer loading and having to touch every machine whenever there's a php
> > > update.

> yeah, i hear ya.  something else that might work for you is to install the 
> php5-dev package, and try building the extension outside of the packaging (so 
> it won't disappear during upgrades).  you shouldn't need to update the 
> extension during package upgrades, unless you go from like etch->lenny.

> > > Ideally, I'd love to see an actual php5-gmp package or gmp added to the
> > > compile-time options in the official package. Is this a possibility?

> > I don't think built-in functionality would be provided in any case
> > (I'm speaking for myself because I'm not a PHP package maintainer).
> > This kind of requests are usually filled by sending a 'bug report' to
> > the virtual 'wnpp' package [1].

> my memory is a little fuzzy on this, but iirc there was some kind of licensing 
> problem with gmp/PHP (like it being GPL'd but linking against PHP, or 
> something like that).  if someone wants to look into this again and can 
> verify that there isn't a problem we can re-evaluate the situation wrt 
> packaging it.

  /usr/share/doc/libgmp3c2/copyright:

  The GNU MP Library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
  modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License
  (LGPL) as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version
  2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
 
The license text is contained in /usr/share/common-licenses/LGPL.

This question was brought up privately to me and Adam back in 2003, and the
conclusion both of us reached then was that either Petr had made a mistake
in identifying GMP as a non-packagable extension, or the license on GMP
changed since the decision was first made.

AFAIK, there is no reason now to not package it.

Cheers,
-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
vorlon at debian.org                                   http://www.debian.org/