Questions about installing Cbc on Linux

[snio89]

First of all, thanks for maintaining these good pacakges for linear programming.
I want to ask a couple of questions about installing CyLP + Cbc on the Linux docker.

1. Cbc can be installed from the Linux repository. However, there is a sentence about its functionality in the README file: Due to license incompatibilities, pre-compiled binaries lack some functionality. I assume that it is related to third-party dependencies of Cbc; GLPK and MUMPS have GPL and GPL-like licenses. I also assume that they are not mandatory because the official docker image uses --no-third-party option. Would you please clarify these assumptions are correct or not, and if possible, the purpose of these third parties?

2. README file of CyLP says You should no longer need to build Cbc from source on any platform unless for some reason. Moreover, it also says You may also need to set either LD_LIBRARY_PATH (Linux) or DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH (OS X). However, official docker image installs Cbc from source and does not set LD_LIBRARY_PATH. Is there any reason for this?

[tkralphs]

[Note: I converted this to a Discussion]

1. Your assumptions are correct. We have also avoided linking with standard Linux packages that are under the GPL, particularly readline, which adds some nice functionality. To build with readline support enbabled in the current releases, you need to build with --enable-gnu-packages. This is probably overly cautious and I think we dropped that argument in the re-write of the build tools, which is used in the master branches of the Cbc stack. Technically, for binaries based on these versions that are to be re-distributed, they should be compiled with --disable-readline.

2. You shouldn't need to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH when the libraries are installed in a directory in the system library path, so yes, there is a reason. But with that said, I threw together the Docker image, just making sure it built properly, and put it out there without testing it. I haven't gotten any complaints, so I assume it's working. It would be better to test thoroughly, but I'm pretty overwhelmed with maintaining all these side projects, so I just do what I can.

[snio89]

Thanks for the answer and I appreciate your efforts.