[Proj] Geo Transfoms and calculations

Charles Wilson proj at cwilson.fastmail.fm
Tue Jan 6 23:03:51 EST 2009


Gerald I. Evenden wrote:
> This seems to work OK on the test file level but the documentation is pretty 
> grim.  Also support seems to be spread into several, discontinuouis sites.

Yeah. It's just the "portable" version of an inbuilt part of netbsd. So
you'd think the netbsd folks would have some decent docs, but...nope.

> The need for readline or something like it is so universal it should be 
> supported under a more general license.  Can you imagine using 'bash' or any 
> of the other shell programs without it?  Usage applies to any command line 
> program.  Just like the program I am working on: without it if you make an 
> error typing in a line, you have to do the whole line over; if you made an 
> error on the last command, again, type it over.  Without it you can't back up 
> and make a quick fix.

Yes, but readline is actually THE example used by the FSF in describing
their plan for world domination:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html
"...This is why we used the Lesser GPL for the GNU C library. After all,
there are plenty of other C libraries; using the GPL for ours would have
driven proprietary software developers to use another--no problem for
them, only for us.

However, when a library provides a significant unique capability, like
GNU Readline, that's a horse of a different color. The Readline library
implements input editing and history for interactive programs, and
that's a facility not generally available elsewhere. Releasing it under
the GPL and limiting its use to free programs gives our community a real
boost. At least one application program is free software today
specifically because that was necessary for using Readline."

--
Chuck


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