[AstroPy] astropy in Debian, Scientific Linux?

[Olе Streicher]

Tom Aldcroft <aldcroft at head.cfa.harvard.edu> writes:
> On Sun, Apr 7, 2013 at 5:50 PM, Sergio Pascual <sergio.pasra at gmail.com> wrote:
>>  * The Fedora legal team reviewed the SOFA license and they considered it
>>    non-free.
>>  * I wrote the SOFA board asking for a license change, they did not answered
>>    my request
>>  * I think the situation in Debian is different

I am afraid that it is not. Althought I could manage to push it into the
Debian repository [1], I would consider this a time bomb. Opinions about
what is considered to be free do not differ much between Debian and
Fedora, so I expect an RC bug mentioning the non-free status of the
library, followed by its removal (and the removal of all dependent
packages as DS9, AST, and soon astropy).

> I wonder if it might be worth trying again with SOFA.  Things are a
> little different now since at this point there are real users that are
> unable to use our (and their) software because of their license.  This
> is very frustrating.

Completely agree.

> I wonder if we could organize a petition in support of modifying the
> SOFA license to something more consistent with typical community
> standards.  I mean the IAU is supposed to be representing and
> benefiting astronomers, no?

I would sign for sure :-)

Best regards

Ole

[1] http://packages.debian.org/source/wheezy/iausofa-c