Re: libguile and readline

[Greg Harvey <Greg.Harvey@thezone.net>]

Lalo Martins <lalo@webcom.com> writes:

> Do programs that link with libguile _really_ need libreadline?

Nope, you can configure without readline. Unless you're linking
statically, it should only make any difference if readline is actually
used (that is, if you have an interactive repl that uses readline).

> Isn't that bloat? Doesn't it add a problem to the fact that
> libguile is GPL? AFAICS, if libguile links with readline then it
> can't be LGPLed.

I wouldn't think so, because:

1) We aren't distributing readline as part of guile, so we aren't
affected by it's license. It depends on how broadly you want to define
derived work, I guess, but calling guile a derived work of readline
would require a tremendous leap of faith.

2) Guile will work without readline, so it's basically the user's
option to link with it; however, thinking about this, you probably
can't distributed a binary of guile which links to readline, since
guile isn't gpl'd... this is something package creators will probably
want to keep in mind (isn't there a readline clone out there that
isn't GPL'd? If that's the case, it doesn't matter, anyway, since it
doesn't necessarily require gnu readline, just a library to provide
the function). 

This is not to say that the differences in licenses isn't problematic
(it's why the parenthesis balancing was reimplemented in guile).

-- 
Greg