Does anybody know of a GSL-like math library that can do Akima and cubic spline interpolation? It needs to be LGPLv2+ or some variant of BSD. GSL is GPLv3 which is incompatible with the the LGPLv2+ used in libcolord. GPL for a library is such a bad idea it’s not even funny.
GSL-like math library?
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hughsie
Richard has over 10 years of experience developing open source software. He is the maintainer of GNOME Software, PackageKit, GNOME Packagekit, GNOME Power Manager, GNOME Color Manager, colord, and UPower and also contributes to many other projects and opensource standards. Richard has three main areas of interest on the free desktop, color management, package management, and power management. Richard graduated a few years ago from the University of Surrey with a Masters in Electronics Engineering. He now works for Red Hat in the desktop group, and also manages a company selling open source calibration equipment. Richard's outside interests include taking photos and eating good food. View all posts by hughsie
Did you check Boost?
Isn’t LGPLv3+ compatible with GPLv.3+?
You can bump libcolord to v.3 to obtain compatibility I think. Not a licensing expert though.
For your math question, you might find the code you want in octave.
The problem is that a GPL library turn the resulting software to GPL, ie it defeat the LGPL licensing that libcolord is licensed under.
Another possibility is http://lib2geom.sourceforge.net/, but IMHO it’s an overkill for what you are probably trying to do.
No akima; but cubic spline in bsd here: https://code.google.com/p/csa-c/
I suspect that there were no real alternatives to GSL when it was released, so it was licensed under the GPL in order to put pressure on proprietary software vendors who might want to use it. That seems to be the FSF way, from what I have read.
Isn’t LGPLv3+ compatible with GPLv.3+?
You can bump libcolord to v.3 to obtain compatibility I think. Not a licensing expert though.
For your math question, you might find the code you want in octave.
I suggested that too, at first – but the problem here is that it is not allowed to link a LGPL library against GPL code. And GSL is, unfortunately, GPL and not LGPL.
It is allowed. But it turns the result into a GPL licensed software, make it incompatible with a lot of case where LPLG is fine. It is why GPL is often called “viral”
BSD-licensed (without the obnoxious advertising clause) Akima C implementation:
http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/code/akima.c.html
It looks like a very straightforward function, most of that file is wrappers to export the function to Python.