ATLAS license discussion, please

[whaley-8]

Guys,

For some time now I've been wrestling with the idea of changing ATLAS's
license, and I'm hoping you can help me make a good choice.  So, I'd
like to open a discussion on what kind of free software license you would
like to see ATLAS use going forward.

Back when ATLAS first came out, there were basically two camps, which
were the BSD and GNU camps.  I always saw both sides of the argument:
BSD matches better the scientific tradition: here's the knowledge,
free for all.  However, GNU said that openness and freedom are even
more important than maximum access, so you can't do anything to remove them,
and if you use it yourself, you usually have to contribute any advances
you make.  There are a lot more subtleties, of course, but that was the
broad strokes of my thoughts at the time.

I come from a scientific tradition, so BSD was more natural to me.  The thing
that finally decided me was that if you mix BSD and GNU, then the GNU
overrides the BSD, which I found horribly coercive.  I didn't mind coercing
evil-doers, but the BSD types were my types, and I didn't like this
bit of strong-arming.  So, I released ATLAS with a BSD style license which
both camps could easily use.

When I chose the BSD license, there was no such thing as software patents.  I
believe software patents are the scourge of our profession.  Because of them,
everyone without literally millions of dollars is effectively a serf that is
able to program only on the sufferance of our patent-wielding lords (even
clearly invalid patents take millions to fight).  In this world of incredibly
destructive patent wars we are now in, it is clear to me that I want a license
that addresses this national (and now international) disaster in at least
some way.

I'm looking around, and it seems to me their are still the same two camps
with the same basic differences.  The BSD camp is now called the Apache
group, and GNU is still GNU.

So, the obvious thing would be for me to change to the Apache 2 license,
since it is closest to what I have and has some patent language.

And yet, the more time has gone on, the more I've had to appreciate
the principles behind GNU.  I have seen that the worst corporate
actors gravitate to the BSD license, and that they typically abuse it,
and that they slander the GNU camp.  

I am not considering at all using the GPL: as the author of a library,
I do not want to force people to change their own projects to make
use of it.  However, I am seriously thinking of switching to the LGPLv3.
I'm a little concerned, because there are parts of it I cannot extract
meaning from, and that worries me.  For instance:
  If you modify a copy of the Library, and, in your modifications, a
  facility refers to a function or data to be supplied by an Application
  that uses the facility (other than as an argument passed when the
  facility is invoked), then you may convey a copy of the modified
  version:

Huh?

Then there are parts that just seem strange like:
   You may not convey a covered work if you are a party to an arrangement with
   a third party that is in the business of distributing software, under which
   you make payment ....

I see this is something against Novell/MS patent covenent, but why is it
restricted to businesses that distribute software?

I'm sure all these answers are right out there on the web, so educational
links are welcome!

Anyway, right now, the three main contenders are status quo (BSD), Apache 2,
and LGPLv3.  I would greatly appreciate hearing your pro/con on them.
I am highly motivated to try to address patents in some way, so BSD right
now is not looking good to me, so if it is important to you, you'd better
talk to me about it!

The apache patent clause seems incredibly weak to me, unfortunately.
It appears to say that if you sue someone over a patent in the software,
that you lose the right to use other contributors patents.  Since I think
owning software patents is morally wrong, and almost everyone I know doing
real development work owns 0 software patents, this seems pretty useless
for individuals (I see why a corporation would like it).  Why doesn't use
of the copyrighted software constitute an agreement not to sue anyone
over patents involved in the use of the software (be a violation of the
*copyright* license)?  Am I reading that wrong?

Even LGPL's patent language is not hard-core enough for me, but they
address it in the preamble where they say this is as much as they
think they can do.  Their language seems to say that if you are using
the patent to prohibit others using the software then you never had a right
to use the software in the first place, not just that your patent rights
are severed.

Anyway, I have many areas of ignorance and concern, but let me leave it
there for now.  If you care about ATLAS's license, now is the time to
make your voice heard.  If you've dreamed of LGPL, please tell me why.
If BSD or Apache is the way to go, please share your reasoning.  If you
work at a company, and a switch to certain licenses would hurt you,
I want to hear about it, and why it is that it would hurt.  

Finally, please point me at other licenses you think are worth considering
(I want to use a fairly standard one to make it easy on other free software
folks).

If you know others people with an interest in the license ATLAS uses
who do not usually read the developer list, please feel free to cross-post
that I'm asking these questions and want to hear from them.

Many thanks,
Clint

**************************************************************************
** R. Clint Whaley, PhD ** Assist Prof, UTSA ** www.cs.utsa.edu/~whaley **
**************************************************************************

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[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky-3]

I've struggled with all of these things and more. There's no easy
answer, but there are some eminently practical questions you'll want
to consider.

1. The R language is released under the GPL. Along come Revolution
Analytics *selling* "proprietary" tools based on R. While in technical
terms Revolution are adhering to the GPL, one of R's creators, Ross
Ikaha, feels like Revolution have "purloined" his work and are
profiting from his work while he receives no compensation.

2. Oracle vs. Google over Android

3. What resources do you have to pursue someone *in court* who
violates the terms of your license? In general the "violator" will
most likely be bigger than you are. ;-)

The minimum a license *must* do is protect you and all the ATLAS
project members from attack in the world's legal systems. As Oracle
vs. Google shows, that's not easy even when you have an army of IP
attorneys and billions of dollars as does Google. My recommendation is
to consult an attorney. He / she may advise creating an "entity" to
house the intellectual property before devising a license.
On Thu, Sep 1, 2011 at 9:11 PM, Clint Whaley <whaley@...> wrote:

> Guys,
>
> For some time now I've been wrestling with the idea of changing ATLAS's
> license, and I'm hoping you can help me make a good choice.  So, I'd
> like to open a discussion on what kind of free software license you would
> like to see ATLAS use going forward.
>
> Back when ATLAS first came out, there were basically two camps, which
> were the BSD and GNU camps.  I always saw both sides of the argument:
> BSD matches better the scientific tradition: here's the knowledge,
> free for all.  However, GNU said that openness and freedom are even
> more important than maximum access, so you can't do anything to remove them,
> and if you use it yourself, you usually have to contribute any advances
> you make.  There are a lot more subtleties, of course, but that was the
> broad strokes of my thoughts at the time.
>
> I come from a scientific tradition, so BSD was more natural to me.  The thing
> that finally decided me was that if you mix BSD and GNU, then the GNU
> overrides the BSD, which I found horribly coercive.  I didn't mind coercing
> evil-doers, but the BSD types were my types, and I didn't like this
> bit of strong-arming.  So, I released ATLAS with a BSD style license which
> both camps could easily use.
>
> When I chose the BSD license, there was no such thing as software patents.  I
> believe software patents are the scourge of our profession.  Because of them,
> everyone without literally millions of dollars is effectively a serf that is
> able to program only on the sufferance of our patent-wielding lords (even
> clearly invalid patents take millions to fight).  In this world of incredibly
> destructive patent wars we are now in, it is clear to me that I want a license
> that addresses this national (and now international) disaster in at least
> some way.
>
> I'm looking around, and it seems to me their are still the same two camps
> with the same basic differences.  The BSD camp is now called the Apache
> group, and GNU is still GNU.
>
> So, the obvious thing would be for me to change to the Apache 2 license,
> since it is closest to what I have and has some patent language.
>
> And yet, the more time has gone on, the more I've had to appreciate
> the principles behind GNU.  I have seen that the worst corporate
> actors gravitate to the BSD license, and that they typically abuse it,
> and that they slander the GNU camp.
>
> I am not considering at all using the GPL: as the author of a library,
> I do not want to force people to change their own projects to make
> use of it.  However, I am seriously thinking of switching to the LGPLv3.
> I'm a little concerned, because there are parts of it I cannot extract
> meaning from, and that worries me.  For instance:
>  If you modify a copy of the Library, and, in your modifications, a
>  facility refers to a function or data to be supplied by an Application
>  that uses the facility (other than as an argument passed when the
>  facility is invoked), then you may convey a copy of the modified
>  version:
>
> Huh?
>
> Then there are parts that just seem strange like:
>   You may not convey a covered work if you are a party to an arrangement with
>   a third party that is in the business of distributing software, under which
>   you make payment ....
>
> I see this is something against Novell/MS patent covenent, but why is it
> restricted to businesses that distribute software?
>
> I'm sure all these answers are right out there on the web, so educational
> links are welcome!
>
> Anyway, right now, the three main contenders are status quo (BSD), Apache 2,
> and LGPLv3.  I would greatly appreciate hearing your pro/con on them.
> I am highly motivated to try to address patents in some way, so BSD right
> now is not looking good to me, so if it is important to you, you'd better
> talk to me about it!
>
> The apache patent clause seems incredibly weak to me, unfortunately.
> It appears to say that if you sue someone over a patent in the software,
> that you lose the right to use other contributors patents.  Since I think
> owning software patents is morally wrong, and almost everyone I know doing
> real development work owns 0 software patents, this seems pretty useless
> for individuals (I see why a corporation would like it).  Why doesn't use
> of the copyrighted software constitute an agreement not to sue anyone
> over patents involved in the use of the software (be a violation of the
> *copyright* license)?  Am I reading that wrong?
>
> Even LGPL's patent language is not hard-core enough for me, but they
> address it in the preamble where they say this is as much as they
> think they can do.  Their language seems to say that if you are using
> the patent to prohibit others using the software then you never had a right
> to use the software in the first place, not just that your patent rights
> are severed.
>
> Anyway, I have many areas of ignorance and concern, but let me leave it
> there for now.  If you care about ATLAS's license, now is the time to
> make your voice heard.  If you've dreamed of LGPL, please tell me why.
> If BSD or Apache is the way to go, please share your reasoning.  If you
> work at a company, and a switch to certain licenses would hurt you,
> I want to hear about it, and why it is that it would hurt.
>
> Finally, please point me at other licenses you think are worth considering
> (I want to use a fairly standard one to make it easy on other free software
> folks).
>
> If you know others people with an interest in the license ATLAS uses
> who do not usually read the developer list, please feel free to cross-post
> that I'm asking these questions and want to hear from them.
>
> Many thanks,
> Clint
>
> **************************************************************************
> ** R. Clint Whaley, PhD ** Assist Prof, UTSA ** www.cs.utsa.edu/~whaley **
> **************************************************************************
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Special Offer -- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE!
> Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better
> price-free! And you'll get a free "Love Thy Logs" t-shirt when you
> download Logger. Secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY!
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsisghtdev2dev
> _______________________________________________
> Math-atlas-devel mailing list
> Math-atlas-devel@...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/math-atlas-devel
>

--
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"A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems." -- Paul Erdős

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[john skaller]

You might look at the C++ Boost licence, this is specifically designed to allow
both free use of the Boost library, Standardisation of the intellectual content,
and commercialisation.

My thoughts in general are:

You must decide what you as the author you desire. If you want to support
the notion that your software is *freely* available you need an open
licence.

If you want to *enforce* open-ness at the expense of freedom, GNU is the
traditional supplier of licences. If you take the GNU path you're
*endorsing* the kind of legal system that also supports software
patents and authoritarianism. GNU chose to leverage the legal system
to satisfy its primary goal: open-ness. GNU licences are not, by
any stretch of the imagination, supporting "free" software as in
"freedom of use for any purpose".

You must think: do you approve, for example, Apple taking BSD Unix
and making a proprietary product with it? Do you approve Apple
being "forced" to throw out GNU Gcc support in favour of LLVM just
because of GNU's licence policy?

Now, the other thing to think about is: what possible litigation could arise?
ANY litigation is a major negative. You neither want to sue someone nor
be sued.

It is not so easy, despite what some courts think. In Australia in some
states if you leave your keys in your parked car it is a criminal offense! you are
considered to be "inciting theft".

By analogy, if you put software in which you claim intellectual property rights
on the Internet and do not provide a reasonable way of enforcing your
rights, it may at least be that you have violated your own ability to claim
any rights at all. After all, if I can simply download your software, without
signing a paper saying I read and accept the licence terms,
who is to say I have broken any laws? What if the download is done
by a robot? What if that robot is a system backup?

My point really is: what's the point of trying to enforce a copyright with
possible exemptions which in fact you not only cannot enforce due to
lack of funds .. but probably don't even want to enforce?

It is generally considered that in the woeful US and European legal
systems you actually need a licence to prevent someone taking
your work, copyrighting it or patenting something YOU invented,
and then suing YOU for breaching their rights.

Luckily, the primary motivation in such cases is commerical gain: if you're
not making a commercial gain or interfering with someone else making
one there are no grounds for a suit.

Ed Borasky wrote:

"My recommendation is
to consult an attorney. He / she may advise creating an "entity" to
house the intellectual property before devising a license."

and there is much sense in that: a separate entity holding the
property my provide your private assets some protection.

If Google stole my software and commercialised it I'd be ecstatic!

IMHO the major concern is not people doing math with your software,
but people releasing a product (such as a programming language)
which has the kind of licence THEY want. If you want such people to
use your software you MUST provide the most liberal licence possible.

For example if my programming language Felix were to incorporate
Atlas as a "standard" component, your licence would have to be
compatible with mine (BSD camp: my actual licence is FFAU:
free for any use). Any GPL licence would conflict with that and exclude
such use, at best I would be forced to distribute and build your product
in a special way to ensure your software was kept "at arms length"
from mine so your licence didn't pollute mine .. or simply not use
your software.

I have in fact spent considerable effort ensuring I did NOT incorporate
any software polluted with Gnu licences. Unfortunate since some
of it is very good. For example to utilise Gnu's Multiple precision
arithmetic package I was forced to write the interface (header
file equivalent) by hand, since generating one automatically
from the C header would render the product "a derived work".
A hand written interface supporting the required protocol is
not a derived work because it is derived from the intellectual property
but not the embodiment of it.


The point here is to strongly consider indirect use of your product:
it is OTHER people's licensing desires you need to think about when
constructing your own, if you want your product to be widely used.




--
john skaller
skaller@...





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[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky-3]

Yes, the fewer restrictions you place on your software the more people
will use it. But you absolutely *must* protect yourself and the ATLAS
team, and I'm not sure there's any open source license that truly
accomplishes that. GPL 3, perhaps ... I haven't looked recently.

On Sat, Sep 3, 2011 at 3:33 PM, john skaller
<skaller@...> wrote:

> You might look at the C++ Boost licence, this is specifically designed to allow
> both free use of the Boost library, Standardisation of the intellectual content,
> and commercialisation.
>
> My thoughts in general are:
>
> You must decide what you as the author you desire. If you want to support
> the notion that your software is *freely* available you need an open
> licence.
>
> If you want to *enforce* open-ness at the expense of freedom, GNU is the
> traditional supplier of licences. If you take the GNU path you're
> *endorsing* the kind of legal system that also supports software
> patents and authoritarianism. GNU chose to leverage the legal system
> to satisfy its primary goal: open-ness. GNU licences are not, by
> any stretch of the imagination, supporting "free" software as in
> "freedom of use for any purpose".
>
> You must think: do you approve, for example, Apple taking BSD Unix
> and making a proprietary product with it? Do you approve Apple
> being "forced" to throw out GNU Gcc support in favour of LLVM just
> because of GNU's licence policy?
>
> Now, the other thing to think about is: what possible litigation could arise?
> ANY litigation is a major negative. You neither want to sue someone nor
> be sued.
>
> It is not so easy, despite what some courts think. In Australia in some
> states if you leave your keys in your parked car it is a criminal offense! you are
> considered to be "inciting theft".
>
> By analogy, if you put software in which you claim intellectual property rights
> on the Internet and do not provide a reasonable way of enforcing your
> rights, it may at least be that you have violated your own ability to claim
> any rights at all. After all, if I can simply download your software, without
> signing a paper saying I read and accept the licence terms,
> who is to say I have broken any laws? What if the download is done
> by a robot? What if that robot is a system backup?
>
> My point really is: what's the point of trying to enforce a copyright with
> possible exemptions which in fact you not only cannot enforce due to
> lack of funds .. but probably don't even want to enforce?
>
> It is generally considered that in the woeful US and European legal
> systems you actually need a licence to prevent someone taking
> your work, copyrighting it or patenting something YOU invented,
> and then suing YOU for breaching their rights.
>
> Luckily, the primary motivation in such cases is commerical gain: if you're
> not making a commercial gain or interfering with someone else making
> one there are no grounds for a suit.
>
> Ed Borasky wrote:
>
> "My recommendation is
> to consult an attorney. He / she may advise creating an "entity" to
> house the intellectual property before devising a license."
>
> and there is much sense in that: a separate entity holding the
> property my provide your private assets some protection.
>
> If Google stole my software and commercialised it I'd be ecstatic!
>
> IMHO the major concern is not people doing math with your software,
> but people releasing a product (such as a programming language)
> which has the kind of licence THEY want. If you want such people to
> use your software you MUST provide the most liberal licence possible.
>
> For example if my programming language Felix were to incorporate
> Atlas as a "standard" component, your licence would have to be
> compatible with mine (BSD camp: my actual licence is FFAU:
> free for any use). Any GPL licence would conflict with that and exclude
> such use, at best I would be forced to distribute and build your product
> in a special way to ensure your software was kept "at arms length"
> from mine so your licence didn't pollute mine .. or simply not use
> your software.
>
> I have in fact spent considerable effort ensuring I did NOT incorporate
> any software polluted with Gnu licences. Unfortunate since some
> of it is very good. For example to utilise Gnu's Multiple precision
> arithmetic package I was forced to write the interface (header
> file equivalent) by hand, since generating one automatically
> from the C header would render the product "a derived work".
> A hand written interface supporting the required protocol is
> not a derived work because it is derived from the intellectual property
> but not the embodiment of it.
>
>
> The point here is to strongly consider indirect use of your product:
> it is OTHER people's licensing desires you need to think about when
> constructing your own, if you want your product to be widely used.
>
>
>
>
> --
> john skaller
> skaller@...
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Special Offer -- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE!
> Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better
> price-free! And you'll get a free "Love Thy Logs" t-shirt when you
> download Logger. Secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY!
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsisghtdev2dev
> _______________________________________________
> Math-atlas-devel mailing list
> Math-atlas-devel@...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/math-atlas-devel
>

--
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"A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems." -- Paul Erdős

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[whaley-8]

John,

>You might look at the C++ Boost licence, this is specifically designed to allow
>both free use of the Boost library, Standardisation of the intellectual content,
>and commercialisation.

Hmm.  I see no mention of patents at all, and what I do see does not seem
at all different from the present BSD license.  If there is a more modern
version of this license, can you link directly to it?

>If you take the GNU path you're
>*endorsing* the kind of legal system that also supports software
>patents and authoritarianism.

You will have explain that, because I truly see no logical way to reach
that conclusion.

>GNU chose to leverage the legal system
>to satisfy its primary goal: open-ness. GNU licences are not, by
>any stretch of the imagination, supporting "free" software as in
>"freedom of use for any purpose".

I agree, they put restrictions on usage to maintain openness and equal access.
Camm (old ATLAS/debian maintainer) also mention that the GNU licenses are
better because they assure poeple that pure parisitism will be illegal.
Everyone can use the code, but everyone must submit their improvements
back to the code base, so if you want to benefit from community development,
you must also contribute to it.  As I have been more involved with large
US corporations, I have more come to see the necessity of this.

>You must think: do you approve, for example, Apple taking BSD Unix
>and making a proprietary product with it?

I don't mind people using ATLAS in proprietary products, but I must admit
I'd like to get some credit and I would hope they would contribute
patches, etc., since they are benefiting from that work.

>Do you approve Apple
>being "forced" to throw out GNU Gcc support in favour of LLVM just
>because of GNU's licence policy?

Can you explain this?  This is not the story as I know it, but I haven't
studied it in detail.  My understanding is the exact opposite: Apple
*chose* to support LLVM because they did not want to follow the GNU license.

Apple seems to have a long history of taking free software, but never
giving back to it.  I.e., they use your software in proprietary products,
but they don't even give patches to the original authors.  In those
cases here they were compelled to give patches by the license, they
gave code dumps that were not useful (going on a Konquerer mailing
list discussion I read long ago).

Then, Apple wrote their App store license in such a way as to incompatible
with GNU license, and instead of fixing their app store terms, they decided
to go full-bore against GNU.  How do you get that they have been forced
to do these things?

In a world of individuals, I like the BSD license.  When I first did ATLAS,
I saw the world I lived in as primarily controlled by individuals.  My
experience these days is that much more of the academic and software
worlds is controlled by corporations, which are by design sociopaths.
Apple appears to me to be a primary example of this: suing everyone for
BS like software & design patents, acquiring more patents to lock out
others from compitition, using open source software but never giving
back to it except where such a gift is to their exclusive benefit.

>Now, the other thing to think about is: what possible litigation could arise?
>ANY litigation is a major negative. You neither want to sue someone nor
>be sued.

Yes, I don't want to sue or be sued.  However, I also don't want my software
to help people who want to sue other people for anticompetitive BS.

>By analogy, if you put software in which you claim intellectual property rights
>on the Internet and do not provide a reasonable way of enforcing your
>rights, it may at least be that you have violated your own ability to claim
>any rights at all. After all, if I can simply download your software, without
>signing a paper saying I read and accept the licence terms,
>who is to say I have broken any laws? What if the download is done
>by a robot? What if that robot is a system backup?

I think the GNU folks have addressed this.  They give a license to use
their copyrighted works.  If you don't accept the license, then you
don't have the right to use their works, and since it is copyrighted,
you know you need a license.

>My point really is: what's the point of trying to enforce a copyright with
>possible exemptions which in fact you not only cannot enforce due to
>lack of funds .. but probably don't even want to enforce?
>
>It is generally considered that in the woeful US and European legal
>systems you actually need a licence to prevent someone taking
>your work, copyrighting it or patenting something YOU invented,
>and then suing YOU for breaching their rights.
>
>Luckily, the primary motivation in such cases is commerical gain: if you're
>not making a commercial gain or interfering with someone else making
>one there are no grounds for a suit.

I am also considering that in a world where many developers are controlled
by sociopathic corporations, it is necessary to put restrictions on your
software so that it is not used by those corporations to destroy the
freedom of others to develop code.  When they are willing to so nakedly
restrain the freedom of others, it becomes more important to make sure
your contributions do not help them destroy what you believe in.

Thanks,
Clint
>
Ed Borasky wrote:

"My recommendation is
to consult an attorney. He / she may advise creating an "entity" to
house the intellectual property before devising a license."

and there is much sense in that: a separate entity holding the
property my provide your private assets some protection.

If Google stole my software and commercialised it I'd be ecstatic!

IMHO the major concern is not people doing math with your software,
but people releasing a product (such as a programming language)
which has the kind of licence THEY want. If you want such people to
use your software you MUST provide the most liberal licence possible.

For example if my programming language Felix were to incorporate
Atlas as a "standard" component, your licence would have to be
compatible with mine (BSD camp: my actual licence is FFAU:
free for any use). Any GPL licence would conflict with that and exclude
such use, at best I would be forced to distribute and build your product
in a special way to ensure your software was kept "at arms length"
from mine so your licence didn't pollute mine .. or simply not use
your software.

I have in fact spent considerable effort ensuring I did NOT incorporate
any software polluted with Gnu licences. Unfortunate since some
of it is very good. For example to utilise Gnu's Multiple precision
arithmetic package I was forced to write the interface (header
file equivalent) by hand, since generating one automatically
from the C header would render the product "a derived work".
A hand written interface supporting the required protocol is
not a derived work because it is derived from the intellectual property
but not the embodiment of it.


The point here is to strongly consider indirect use of your product:
it is OTHER people's licensing desires you need to think about when
constructing your own, if you want your product to be widely used.




--
john skaller
skaller@...





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**************************************************************************

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[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky-3]

It sounds like you and whoever the "entity" are that's behind ATLAS
need to have a discussion with an attorney, and perhaps an accountant.
As a user, I hate "academic licenses" (free in binary form to academic
users but paid for by "commercial" users), but the reality of today's
world is that an academic license or some form of similar license
might be the best way to proceed with ATLAS, especially since you've
broadened the scope of it to the growing ARM platform. Maybe there
needs to be an "ATLAS Linear Algebra" foundation.

It really *is* about money, even if you want to think it's about
"freedom". There are hidden costs of "free as in beer". People who
develop quality software like ATLAS deserve to be paid just as much as
the attorneys and accountants who fight over it and the sales reps who
sell it. ;-)

On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 8:13 AM, Clint Whaley <whaley@...> wrote:

> John,
>
>>You might look at the C++ Boost licence, this is specifically designed to allow
>>both free use of the Boost library, Standardisation of the intellectual content,
>>and commercialisation.
>
> Hmm.  I see no mention of patents at all, and what I do see does not seem
> at all different from the present BSD license.  If there is a more modern
> version of this license, can you link directly to it?
>
>>If you take the GNU path you're
>>*endorsing* the kind of legal system that also supports software
>>patents and authoritarianism.
>
> You will have explain that, because I truly see no logical way to reach
> that conclusion.
>
>>GNU chose to leverage the legal system
>>to satisfy its primary goal: open-ness. GNU licences are not, by
>>any stretch of the imagination, supporting "free" software as in
>>"freedom of use for any purpose".
>
> I agree, they put restrictions on usage to maintain openness and equal access.
> Camm (old ATLAS/debian maintainer) also mention that the GNU licenses are
> better because they assure poeple that pure parisitism will be illegal.
> Everyone can use the code, but everyone must submit their improvements
> back to the code base, so if you want to benefit from community development,
> you must also contribute to it.  As I have been more involved with large
> US corporations, I have more come to see the necessity of this.
>
>>You must think: do you approve, for example, Apple taking BSD Unix
>>and making a proprietary product with it?
>
> I don't mind people using ATLAS in proprietary products, but I must admit
> I'd like to get some credit and I would hope they would contribute
> patches, etc., since they are benefiting from that work.
>
>>Do you approve Apple
>>being "forced" to throw out GNU Gcc support in favour of LLVM just
>>because of GNU's licence policy?
>
> Can you explain this?  This is not the story as I know it, but I haven't
> studied it in detail.  My understanding is the exact opposite: Apple
> *chose* to support LLVM because they did not want to follow the GNU license.
>
> Apple seems to have a long history of taking free software, but never
> giving back to it.  I.e., they use your software in proprietary products,
> but they don't even give patches to the original authors.  In those
> cases here they were compelled to give patches by the license, they
> gave code dumps that were not useful (going on a Konquerer mailing
> list discussion I read long ago).
>
> Then, Apple wrote their App store license in such a way as to incompatible
> with GNU license, and instead of fixing their app store terms, they decided
> to go full-bore against GNU.  How do you get that they have been forced
> to do these things?
>
> In a world of individuals, I like the BSD license.  When I first did ATLAS,
> I saw the world I lived in as primarily controlled by individuals.  My
> experience these days is that much more of the academic and software
> worlds is controlled by corporations, which are by design sociopaths.
> Apple appears to me to be a primary example of this: suing everyone for
> BS like software & design patents, acquiring more patents to lock out
> others from compitition, using open source software but never giving
> back to it except where such a gift is to their exclusive benefit.
>
>>Now, the other thing to think about is: what possible litigation could arise?
>>ANY litigation is a major negative. You neither want to sue someone nor
>>be sued.
>
> Yes, I don't want to sue or be sued.  However, I also don't want my software
> to help people who want to sue other people for anticompetitive BS.
>
>>By analogy, if you put software in which you claim intellectual property rights
>>on the Internet and do not provide a reasonable way of enforcing your
>>rights, it may at least be that you have violated your own ability to claim
>>any rights at all. After all, if I can simply download your software, without
>>signing a paper saying I read and accept the licence terms,
>>who is to say I have broken any laws? What if the download is done
>>by a robot? What if that robot is a system backup?
>
> I think the GNU folks have addressed this.  They give a license to use
> their copyrighted works.  If you don't accept the license, then you
> don't have the right to use their works, and since it is copyrighted,
> you know you need a license.
>
>>My point really is: what's the point of trying to enforce a copyright with
>>possible exemptions which in fact you not only cannot enforce due to
>>lack of funds .. but probably don't even want to enforce?
>>
>>It is generally considered that in the woeful US and European legal
>>systems you actually need a licence to prevent someone taking
>>your work, copyrighting it or patenting something YOU invented,
>>and then suing YOU for breaching their rights.
>>
>>Luckily, the primary motivation in such cases is commerical gain: if you're
>>not making a commercial gain or interfering with someone else making
>>one there are no grounds for a suit.
>
> I am also considering that in a world where many developers are controlled
> by sociopathic corporations, it is necessary to put restrictions on your
> software so that it is not used by those corporations to destroy the
> freedom of others to develop code.  When they are willing to so nakedly
> restrain the freedom of others, it becomes more important to make sure
> your contributions do not help them destroy what you believe in.
>
> Thanks,
> Clint
>>
> Ed Borasky wrote:
>
> "My recommendation is
> to consult an attorney. He / she may advise creating an "entity" to
> house the intellectual property before devising a license."
>
> and there is much sense in that: a separate entity holding the
> property my provide your private assets some protection.
>
> If Google stole my software and commercialised it I'd be ecstatic!
>
> IMHO the major concern is not people doing math with your software,
> but people releasing a product (such as a programming language)
> which has the kind of licence THEY want. If you want such people to
> use your software you MUST provide the most liberal licence possible.
>
> For example if my programming language Felix were to incorporate
> Atlas as a "standard" component, your licence would have to be
> compatible with mine (BSD camp: my actual licence is FFAU:
> free for any use). Any GPL licence would conflict with that and exclude
> such use, at best I would be forced to distribute and build your product
> in a special way to ensure your software was kept "at arms length"
> from mine so your licence didn't pollute mine .. or simply not use
> your software.
>
> I have in fact spent considerable effort ensuring I did NOT incorporate
> any software polluted with Gnu licences. Unfortunate since some
> of it is very good. For example to utilise Gnu's Multiple precision
> arithmetic package I was forced to write the interface (header
> file equivalent) by hand, since generating one automatically
> from the C header would render the product "a derived work".
> A hand written interface supporting the required protocol is
> not a derived work because it is derived from the intellectual property
> but not the embodiment of it.
>
>
> The point here is to strongly consider indirect use of your product:
> it is OTHER people's licensing desires you need to think about when
> constructing your own, if you want your product to be widely used.
>
>
>
>
> --
> john skaller
> skaller@...
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Special Offer -- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE!
> Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better
> price-free! And you'll get a free "Love Thy Logs" t-shirt when you
> download Logger. Secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY!
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsisghtdev2dev
> _______________________________________________
> Math-atlas-devel mailing list
> Math-atlas-devel@...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/math-atlas-devel
>
>
> **************************************************************************
> ** R. Clint Whaley, PhD ** Assist Prof, UTSA ** www.cs.utsa.edu/~whaley **
> **************************************************************************
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Special Offer -- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE!
> Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better
> price-free! And you'll get a free "Love Thy Logs" t-shirt when you
> download Logger. Secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY!
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsisghtdev2dev
> _______________________________________________
> Math-atlas-devel mailing list
> Math-atlas-devel@...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/math-atlas-devel
>

--
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"A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems." -- Paul Erdős

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download Logger. Secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY!
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[Andrew Cross-2]

As someone who has both a personal interest in ATLAS, while also working as the CTO of a decently sized software company, I wanted to just offer a slightly different perspective on licenses.

Our company in general use a good number of open source projects (and are very careful to follow the terms of the licenses.) In addition to this, we obviously dedicate significant money into working with these libraries, discovering and fixing issues, and indeed extending the libraries quite significantly in many instances. We have often contracted people who work on the code in question as part of the open source community to make changes or improvements to us which we then submit back to the project as a whole under the terms of the LGPL license.

At the end of the day, companies make money of libraries and this can be a win/win situation because we are often fully prepared to contribute real money to those projects in terms of improvements and are happy to share those benefits back with the project. This contribution often helps a particular project quite significantly and in a way volunteer or academic contributions alone do not.

I am in no way underplaying the patent or IP issues that ahve become the scurge of our industry. That said, I would be careful to not throw the baby out with the bath-water ... allowing commercial use of a project ultimately should enouncourage more development of it and not the opposite.

Andrew

On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 9:19 AM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky <znmeb@...> wrote:

It sounds like you and whoever the "entity" are that's behind ATLAS
need to have a discussion with an attorney, and perhaps an accountant.
As a user, I hate "academic licenses" (free in binary form to academic
users but paid for by "commercial" users), but the reality of today's
world is that an academic license or some form of similar license
might be the best way to proceed with ATLAS, especially since you've
broadened the scope of it to the growing ARM platform. Maybe there
needs to be an "ATLAS Linear Algebra" foundation.

It really *is* about money, even if you want to think it's about
"freedom". There are hidden costs of "free as in beer". People who
develop quality software like ATLAS deserve to be paid just as much as
the attorneys and accountants who fight over it and the sales reps who
sell it. ;-)

On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 8:13 AM, Clint Whaley <whaley@...> wrote:
> John,
>
>>You might look at the C++ Boost licence, this is specifically designed to allow
>>both free use of the Boost library, Standardisation of the intellectual content,
>>and commercialisation.
>
> Hmm.  I see no mention of patents at all, and what I do see does not seem
> at all different from the present BSD license.  If there is a more modern
> version of this license, can you link directly to it?
>
>>If you take the GNU path you're
>>*endorsing* the kind of legal system that also supports software
>>patents and authoritarianism.
>
> You will have explain that, because I truly see no logical way to reach
> that conclusion.
>
>>GNU chose to leverage the legal system
>>to satisfy its primary goal: open-ness. GNU licences are not, by
>>any stretch of the imagination, supporting "free" software as in
>>"freedom of use for any purpose".
>
> I agree, they put restrictions on usage to maintain openness and equal access.
> Camm (old ATLAS/debian maintainer) also mention that the GNU licenses are
> better because they assure poeple that pure parisitism will be illegal.
> Everyone can use the code, but everyone must submit their improvements
> back to the code base, so if you want to benefit from community development,
> you must also contribute to it.  As I have been more involved with large
> US corporations, I have more come to see the necessity of this.
>
>>You must think: do you approve, for example, Apple taking BSD Unix
>>and making a proprietary product with it?
>
> I don't mind people using ATLAS in proprietary products, but I must admit
> I'd like to get some credit and I would hope they would contribute
> patches, etc., since they are benefiting from that work.
>
>>Do you approve Apple
>>being "forced" to throw out GNU Gcc support in favour of LLVM just
>>because of GNU's licence policy?
>
> Can you explain this?  This is not the story as I know it, but I haven't
> studied it in detail.  My understanding is the exact opposite: Apple
> *chose* to support LLVM because they did not want to follow the GNU license.
>
> Apple seems to have a long history of taking free software, but never
> giving back to it.  I.e., they use your software in proprietary products,
> but they don't even give patches to the original authors.  In those
> cases here they were compelled to give patches by the license, they
> gave code dumps that were not useful (going on a Konquerer mailing
> list discussion I read long ago).
>
> Then, Apple wrote their App store license in such a way as to incompatible
> with GNU license, and instead of fixing their app store terms, they decided
> to go full-bore against GNU.  How do you get that they have been forced
> to do these things?
>
> In a world of individuals, I like the BSD license.  When I first did ATLAS,
> I saw the world I lived in as primarily controlled by individuals.  My
> experience these days is that much more of the academic and software
> worlds is controlled by corporations, which are by design sociopaths.
> Apple appears to me to be a primary example of this: suing everyone for
> BS like software & design patents, acquiring more patents to lock out
> others from compitition, using open source software but never giving
> back to it except where such a gift is to their exclusive benefit.
>
>>Now, the other thing to think about is: what possible litigation could arise?
>>ANY litigation is a major negative. You neither want to sue someone nor
>>be sued.
>
> Yes, I don't want to sue or be sued.  However, I also don't want my software
> to help people who want to sue other people for anticompetitive BS.
>
>>By analogy, if you put software in which you claim intellectual property rights
>>on the Internet and do not provide a reasonable way of enforcing your
>>rights, it may at least be that you have violated your own ability to claim
>>any rights at all. After all, if I can simply download your software, without
>>signing a paper saying I read and accept the licence terms,
>>who is to say I have broken any laws? What if the download is done
>>by a robot? What if that robot is a system backup?
>
> I think the GNU folks have addressed this.  They give a license to use
> their copyrighted works.  If you don't accept the license, then you
> don't have the right to use their works, and since it is copyrighted,
> you know you need a license.
>
>>My point really is: what's the point of trying to enforce a copyright with
>>possible exemptions which in fact you not only cannot enforce due to
>>lack of funds .. but probably don't even want to enforce?
>>
>>It is generally considered that in the woeful US and European legal
>>systems you actually need a licence to prevent someone taking
>>your work, copyrighting it or patenting something YOU invented,
>>and then suing YOU for breaching their rights.
>>
>>Luckily, the primary motivation in such cases is commerical gain: if you're
>>not making a commercial gain or interfering with someone else making
>>one there are no grounds for a suit.
>
> I am also considering that in a world where many developers are controlled
> by sociopathic corporations, it is necessary to put restrictions on your
> software so that it is not used by those corporations to destroy the
> freedom of others to develop code.  When they are willing to so nakedly
> restrain the freedom of others, it becomes more important to make sure
> your contributions do not help them destroy what you believe in.
>
> Thanks,
> Clint
>>
> Ed Borasky wrote:
>
> "My recommendation is
> to consult an attorney. He / she may advise creating an "entity" to
> house the intellectual property before devising a license."
>
> and there is much sense in that: a separate entity holding the
> property my provide your private assets some protection.
>
> If Google stole my software and commercialised it I'd be ecstatic!
>
> IMHO the major concern is not people doing math with your software,
> but people releasing a product (such as a programming language)
> which has the kind of licence THEY want. If you want such people to
> use your software you MUST provide the most liberal licence possible.
>
> For example if my programming language Felix were to incorporate
> Atlas as a "standard" component, your licence would have to be
> compatible with mine (BSD camp: my actual licence is FFAU:
> free for any use). Any GPL licence would conflict with that and exclude
> such use, at best I would be forced to distribute and build your product
> in a special way to ensure your software was kept "at arms length"
> from mine so your licence didn't pollute mine .. or simply not use
> your software.
>
> I have in fact spent considerable effort ensuring I did NOT incorporate
> any software polluted with Gnu licences. Unfortunate since some
> of it is very good. For example to utilise Gnu's Multiple precision
> arithmetic package I was forced to write the interface (header
> file equivalent) by hand, since generating one automatically
> from the C header would render the product "a derived work".
> A hand written interface supporting the required protocol is
> not a derived work because it is derived from the intellectual property
> but not the embodiment of it.
>
>
> The point here is to strongly consider indirect use of your product:
> it is OTHER people's licensing desires you need to think about when
> constructing your own, if you want your product to be widely used.
>
>
>
>
> --
> john skaller
> skaller@...
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Special Offer -- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE!
> Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better
> price-free! And you'll get a free "Love Thy Logs" t-shirt when you
> download Logger. Secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY!
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsisghtdev2dev
> _______________________________________________
> Math-atlas-devel mailing list
> Math-atlas-devel@...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/math-atlas-devel
>
>
> **************************************************************************
> ** R. Clint Whaley, PhD ** Assist Prof, UTSA ** www.cs.utsa.edu/~whaley **
> **************************************************************************
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Special Offer -- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE!
> Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better
> price-free! And you'll get a free "Love Thy Logs" t-shirt when you
> download Logger. Secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY!
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsisghtdev2dev
> _______________________________________________
> Math-atlas-devel mailing list
> Math-atlas-devel@...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/math-atlas-devel
>



--
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"A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems." -- Paul Erdős

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price-free! And you'll get a free "Love Thy Logs" t-shirt when you
download Logger. Secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY!
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[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky-3]

On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 9:49 AM, Andrew Cross <adjc@...> wrote:

> At the end of the day, companies make money of libraries and this can be a
> win/win situation because we are often fully prepared to contribute real
> money to those projects in terms of improvements and are happy to share
> those benefits back with the project. This contribution often helps a
> particular project quite significantly and in a way volunteer or academic
> contributions alone do not.
> I am in no way underplaying the patent or IP issues that ahve become the
> scurge of our industry. That said, I would be careful to not throw the baby
> out with the bath-water ... allowing commercial use of a project ultimately
> should enouncourage more development of it and not the opposite.
> Andrew

Yes ... I think the "foundation" model has more potential for this
than anything else. But the reality is that what matters most is the
size of the entities in terms of budgetary numbers - revenue and how
they acquire it and expenses. I would urge the ATLAS team to make the
entity decision first - foundation, some other non-profit, private
corporation built around an open-source core like SugarCRM, etc. We
need to have "the money talk". Right now, as far as I can tell, ATLAS
in all forms is beign given away. I don't think that's realistic or
good.

>
> On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 9:19 AM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky
> <znmeb@...> wrote:
>>
>> It sounds like you and whoever the "entity" are that's behind ATLAS
>> need to have a discussion with an attorney, and perhaps an accountant.
>> As a user, I hate "academic licenses" (free in binary form to academic
>> users but paid for by "commercial" users), but the reality of today's
>> world is that an academic license or some form of similar license
>> might be the best way to proceed with ATLAS, especially since you've
>> broadened the scope of it to the growing ARM platform. Maybe there
>> needs to be an "ATLAS Linear Algebra" foundation.
>>
>> It really *is* about money, even if you want to think it's about
>> "freedom". There are hidden costs of "free as in beer". People who
>> develop quality software like ATLAS deserve to be paid just as much as
>> the attorneys and accountants who fight over it and the sales reps who
>> sell it. ;-)
>>
>> On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 8:13 AM, Clint Whaley <whaley@...> wrote:
>> > John,
>> >
>> >>You might look at the C++ Boost licence, this is specifically designed
>> >> to allow
>> >>both free use of the Boost library, Standardisation of the intellectual
>> >> content,
>> >>and commercialisation.
>> >
>> > Hmm.  I see no mention of patents at all, and what I do see does not
>> > seem
>> > at all different from the present BSD license.  If there is a more
>> > modern
>> > version of this license, can you link directly to it?
>> >
>> >>If you take the GNU path you're
>> >>*endorsing* the kind of legal system that also supports software
>> >>patents and authoritarianism.
>> >
>> > You will have explain that, because I truly see no logical way to reach
>> > that conclusion.
>> >
>> >>GNU chose to leverage the legal system
>> >>to satisfy its primary goal: open-ness. GNU licences are not, by
>> >>any stretch of the imagination, supporting "free" software as in
>> >>"freedom of use for any purpose".
>> >
>> > I agree, they put restrictions on usage to maintain openness and equal
>> > access.
>> > Camm (old ATLAS/debian maintainer) also mention that the GNU licenses
>> > are
>> > better because they assure poeple that pure parisitism will be illegal.
>> > Everyone can use the code, but everyone must submit their improvements
>> > back to the code base, so if you want to benefit from community
>> > development,
>> > you must also contribute to it.  As I have been more involved with large
>> > US corporations, I have more come to see the necessity of this.
>> >
>> >>You must think: do you approve, for example, Apple taking BSD Unix
>> >>and making a proprietary product with it?
>> >
>> > I don't mind people using ATLAS in proprietary products, but I must
>> > admit
>> > I'd like to get some credit and I would hope they would contribute
>> > patches, etc., since they are benefiting from that work.
>> >
>> >>Do you approve Apple
>> >>being "forced" to throw out GNU Gcc support in favour of LLVM just
>> >>because of GNU's licence policy?
>> >
>> > Can you explain this?  This is not the story as I know it, but I haven't
>> > studied it in detail.  My understanding is the exact opposite: Apple
>> > *chose* to support LLVM because they did not want to follow the GNU
>> > license.
>> >
>> > Apple seems to have a long history of taking free software, but never
>> > giving back to it.  I.e., they use your software in proprietary
>> > products,
>> > but they don't even give patches to the original authors.  In those
>> > cases here they were compelled to give patches by the license, they
>> > gave code dumps that were not useful (going on a Konquerer mailing
>> > list discussion I read long ago).
>> >
>> > Then, Apple wrote their App store license in such a way as to
>> > incompatible
>> > with GNU license, and instead of fixing their app store terms, they
>> > decided
>> > to go full-bore against GNU.  How do you get that they have been forced
>> > to do these things?
>> >
>> > In a world of individuals, I like the BSD license.  When I first did
>> > ATLAS,
>> > I saw the world I lived in as primarily controlled by individuals.  My
>> > experience these days is that much more of the academic and software
>> > worlds is controlled by corporations, which are by design sociopaths.
>> > Apple appears to me to be a primary example of this: suing everyone for
>> > BS like software & design patents, acquiring more patents to lock out
>> > others from compitition, using open source software but never giving
>> > back to it except where such a gift is to their exclusive benefit.
>> >
>> >>Now, the other thing to think about is: what possible litigation could
>> >> arise?
>> >>ANY litigation is a major negative. You neither want to sue someone nor
>> >>be sued.
>> >
>> > Yes, I don't want to sue or be sued.  However, I also don't want my
>> > software
>> > to help people who want to sue other people for anticompetitive BS.
>> >
>> >>By analogy, if you put software in which you claim intellectual property
>> >> rights
>> >>on the Internet and do not provide a reasonable way of enforcing your
>> >>rights, it may at least be that you have violated your own ability to
>> >> claim
>> >>any rights at all. After all, if I can simply download your software,
>> >> without
>> >>signing a paper saying I read and accept the licence terms,
>> >>who is to say I have broken any laws? What if the download is done
>> >>by a robot? What if that robot is a system backup?
>> >
>> > I think the GNU folks have addressed this.  They give a license to use
>> > their copyrighted works.  If you don't accept the license, then you
>> > don't have the right to use their works, and since it is copyrighted,
>> > you know you need a license.
>> >
>> >>My point really is: what's the point of trying to enforce a copyright
>> >> with
>> >>possible exemptions which in fact you not only cannot enforce due to
>> >>lack of funds .. but probably don't even want to enforce?
>> >>
>> >>It is generally considered that in the woeful US and European legal
>> >>systems you actually need a licence to prevent someone taking
>> >>your work, copyrighting it or patenting something YOU invented,
>> >>and then suing YOU for breaching their rights.
>> >>
>> >>Luckily, the primary motivation in such cases is commerical gain: if
>> >> you're
>> >>not making a commercial gain or interfering with someone else making
>> >>one there are no grounds for a suit.
>> >
>> > I am also considering that in a world where many developers are
>> > controlled
>> > by sociopathic corporations, it is necessary to put restrictions on your
>> > software so that it is not used by those corporations to destroy the
>> > freedom of others to develop code.  When they are willing to so nakedly
>> > restrain the freedom of others, it becomes more important to make sure
>> > your contributions do not help them destroy what you believe in.
>> >
>> > Thanks,
>> > Clint
>> >>
>> > Ed Borasky wrote:
>> >
>> > "My recommendation is
>> > to consult an attorney. He / she may advise creating an "entity" to
>> > house the intellectual property before devising a license."
>> >
>> > and there is much sense in that: a separate entity holding the
>> > property my provide your private assets some protection.
>> >
>> > If Google stole my software and commercialised it I'd be ecstatic!
>> >
>> > IMHO the major concern is not people doing math with your software,
>> > but people releasing a product (such as a programming language)
>> > which has the kind of licence THEY want. If you want such people to
>> > use your software you MUST provide the most liberal licence possible.
>> >
>> > For example if my programming language Felix were to incorporate
>> > Atlas as a "standard" component, your licence would have to be
>> > compatible with mine (BSD camp: my actual licence is FFAU:
>> > free for any use). Any GPL licence would conflict with that and exclude
>> > such use, at best I would be forced to distribute and build your product
>> > in a special way to ensure your software was kept "at arms length"
>> > from mine so your licence didn't pollute mine .. or simply not use
>> > your software.
>> >
>> > I have in fact spent considerable effort ensuring I did NOT incorporate
>> > any software polluted with Gnu licences. Unfortunate since some
>> > of it is very good. For example to utilise Gnu's Multiple precision
>> > arithmetic package I was forced to write the interface (header
>> > file equivalent) by hand, since generating one automatically
>> > from the C header would render the product "a derived work".
>> > A hand written interface supporting the required protocol is
>> > not a derived work because it is derived from the intellectual property
>> > but not the embodiment of it.
>> >
>> >
>> > The point here is to strongly consider indirect use of your product:
>> > it is OTHER people's licensing desires you need to think about when
>> > constructing your own, if you want your product to be widely used.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > john skaller
>> > skaller@...
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> > Special Offer -- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE!
>> > Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better
>> > price-free! And you'll get a free "Love Thy Logs" t-shirt when you
>> > download Logger. Secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY!
>> > http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsisghtdev2dev
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Math-atlas-devel mailing list
>> > Math-atlas-devel@...
>> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/math-atlas-devel
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > **************************************************************************
>> > ** R. Clint Whaley, PhD ** Assist Prof, UTSA ** www.cs.utsa.edu/~whaley
>> > **
>> >
>> > **************************************************************************
>> >
>> >
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> > Special Offer -- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE!
>> > Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better
>> > price-free! And you'll get a free "Love Thy Logs" t-shirt when you
>> > download Logger. Secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY!
>> > http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsisghtdev2dev
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Math-atlas-devel mailing list
>> > Math-atlas-devel@...
>> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/math-atlas-devel
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> http://twitter.com/znmeb http://borasky-research.net
>>
>> "A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems." -- Paul
>> Erdős
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Special Offer -- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE!
>> Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better
>> price-free! And you'll get a free "Love Thy Logs" t-shirt when you
>> download Logger. Secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY!
>> http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsisghtdev2dev
>> _______________________________________________
>> Math-atlas-devel mailing list
>> Math-atlas-devel@...
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/math-atlas-devel
>
>

--
http://twitter.com/znmeb http://borasky-research.net

"A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems." -- Paul Erdős

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[José Luis García Pallero]

2011/9/4 M. Edward (Ed) Borasky <znmeb@...>:
> It sounds like you and whoever the "entity" are that's behind ATLAS
> need to have a discussion with an attorney, and perhaps an accountant.
> As a user, I hate "academic licenses" (free in binary form to academic
> users but paid for by "commercial" users), but the reality of today's
> world is that an academic license or some form of similar license
> might be the best way to proceed with ATLAS,

But this type of license will make ATLAS not free software

>especially since you've
> broadened the scope of it to the growing ARM platform. Maybe there
> needs to be an "ATLAS Linear Algebra" foundation.
>
> It really *is* about money, even if you want to think it's about
> "freedom". There are hidden costs of "free as in beer". People who
> develop quality software like ATLAS deserve to be paid just as much as
> the attorneys and accountants who fight over it and the sales reps who
> sell it. ;-)
>
> On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 8:13 AM, Clint Whaley <whaley@...> wrote:
>> John,
>>
>>>You might look at the C++ Boost licence, this is specifically designed to allow
>>>both free use of the Boost library, Standardisation of the intellectual content,
>>>and commercialisation.
>>
>> Hmm.  I see no mention of patents at all, and what I do see does not seem
>> at all different from the present BSD license.  If there is a more modern
>> version of this license, can you link directly to it?
>>
>>>If you take the GNU path you're
>>>*endorsing* the kind of legal system that also supports software
>>>patents and authoritarianism.
>>
>> You will have explain that, because I truly see no logical way to reach
>> that conclusion.
>>
>>>GNU chose to leverage the legal system
>>>to satisfy its primary goal: open-ness. GNU licences are not, by
>>>any stretch of the imagination, supporting "free" software as in
>>>"freedom of use for any purpose".
>>
>> I agree, they put restrictions on usage to maintain openness and equal access.
>> Camm (old ATLAS/debian maintainer) also mention that the GNU licenses are
>> better because they assure poeple that pure parisitism will be illegal.
>> Everyone can use the code, but everyone must submit their improvements
>> back to the code base, so if you want to benefit from community development,
>> you must also contribute to it.  As I have been more involved with large
>> US corporations, I have more come to see the necessity of this.
>>
>>>You must think: do you approve, for example, Apple taking BSD Unix
>>>and making a proprietary product with it?
>>
>> I don't mind people using ATLAS in proprietary products, but I must admit
>> I'd like to get some credit and I would hope they would contribute
>> patches, etc., since they are benefiting from that work.
>>
>>>Do you approve Apple
>>>being "forced" to throw out GNU Gcc support in favour of LLVM just
>>>because of GNU's licence policy?
>>
>> Can you explain this?  This is not the story as I know it, but I haven't
>> studied it in detail.  My understanding is the exact opposite: Apple
>> *chose* to support LLVM because they did not want to follow the GNU license.
>>
>> Apple seems to have a long history of taking free software, but never
>> giving back to it.  I.e., they use your software in proprietary products,
>> but they don't even give patches to the original authors.  In those
>> cases here they were compelled to give patches by the license, they
>> gave code dumps that were not useful (going on a Konquerer mailing
>> list discussion I read long ago).
>>
>> Then, Apple wrote their App store license in such a way as to incompatible
>> with GNU license, and instead of fixing their app store terms, they decided
>> to go full-bore against GNU.  How do you get that they have been forced
>> to do these things?
>>
>> In a world of individuals, I like the BSD license.  When I first did ATLAS,
>> I saw the world I lived in as primarily controlled by individuals.  My
>> experience these days is that much more of the academic and software
>> worlds is controlled by corporations, which are by design sociopaths.
>> Apple appears to me to be a primary example of this: suing everyone for
>> BS like software & design patents, acquiring more patents to lock out
>> others from compitition, using open source software but never giving
>> back to it except where such a gift is to their exclusive benefit.
>>
>>>Now, the other thing to think about is: what possible litigation could arise?
>>>ANY litigation is a major negative. You neither want to sue someone nor
>>>be sued.
>>
>> Yes, I don't want to sue or be sued.  However, I also don't want my software
>> to help people who want to sue other people for anticompetitive BS.
>>
>>>By analogy, if you put software in which you claim intellectual property rights
>>>on the Internet and do not provide a reasonable way of enforcing your
>>>rights, it may at least be that you have violated your own ability to claim
>>>any rights at all. After all, if I can simply download your software, without
>>>signing a paper saying I read and accept the licence terms,
>>>who is to say I have broken any laws? What if the download is done
>>>by a robot? What if that robot is a system backup?
>>
>> I think the GNU folks have addressed this.  They give a license to use
>> their copyrighted works.  If you don't accept the license, then you
>> don't have the right to use their works, and since it is copyrighted,
>> you know you need a license.
>>
>>>My point really is: what's the point of trying to enforce a copyright with
>>>possible exemptions which in fact you not only cannot enforce due to
>>>lack of funds .. but probably don't even want to enforce?
>>>
>>>It is generally considered that in the woeful US and European legal
>>>systems you actually need a licence to prevent someone taking
>>>your work, copyrighting it or patenting something YOU invented,
>>>and then suing YOU for breaching their rights.
>>>
>>>Luckily, the primary motivation in such cases is commerical gain: if you're
>>>not making a commercial gain or interfering with someone else making
>>>one there are no grounds for a suit.
>>
>> I am also considering that in a world where many developers are controlled
>> by sociopathic corporations, it is necessary to put restrictions on your
>> software so that it is not used by those corporations to destroy the
>> freedom of others to develop code.  When they are willing to so nakedly
>> restrain the freedom of others, it becomes more important to make sure
>> your contributions do not help them destroy what you believe in.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Clint
>>>
>> Ed Borasky wrote:
>>
>> "My recommendation is
>> to consult an attorney. He / she may advise creating an "entity" to
>> house the intellectual property before devising a license."
>>
>> and there is much sense in that: a separate entity holding the
>> property my provide your private assets some protection.
>>
>> If Google stole my software and commercialised it I'd be ecstatic!
>>
>> IMHO the major concern is not people doing math with your software,
>> but people releasing a product (such as a programming language)
>> which has the kind of licence THEY want. If you want such people to
>> use your software you MUST provide the most liberal licence possible.
>>
>> For example if my programming language Felix were to incorporate
>> Atlas as a "standard" component, your licence would have to be
>> compatible with mine (BSD camp: my actual licence is FFAU:
>> free for any use). Any GPL licence would conflict with that and exclude
>> such use, at best I would be forced to distribute and build your product
>> in a special way to ensure your software was kept "at arms length"
>> from mine so your licence didn't pollute mine .. or simply not use
>> your software.
>>
>> I have in fact spent considerable effort ensuring I did NOT incorporate
>> any software polluted with Gnu licences. Unfortunate since some
>> of it is very good. For example to utilise Gnu's Multiple precision
>> arithmetic package I was forced to write the interface (header
>> file equivalent) by hand, since generating one automatically
>> from the C header would render the product "a derived work".
>> A hand written interface supporting the required protocol is
>> not a derived work because it is derived from the intellectual property
>> but not the embodiment of it.
>>
>>
>> The point here is to strongly consider indirect use of your product:
>> it is OTHER people's licensing desires you need to think about when
>> constructing your own, if you want your product to be widely used.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> john skaller
>> skaller@...
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Special Offer -- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE!
>> Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better
>> price-free! And you'll get a free "Love Thy Logs" t-shirt when you
>> download Logger. Secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY!
>> http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsisghtdev2dev
>> _______________________________________________
>> Math-atlas-devel mailing list
>> Math-atlas-devel@...
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/math-atlas-devel
>>
>>
>> **************************************************************************
>> ** R. Clint Whaley, PhD ** Assist Prof, UTSA ** www.cs.utsa.edu/~whaley **
>> **************************************************************************
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Special Offer -- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE!
>> Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better
>> price-free! And you'll get a free "Love Thy Logs" t-shirt when you
>> download Logger. Secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY!
>> http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsisghtdev2dev
>> _______________________________________________
>> Math-atlas-devel mailing list
>> Math-atlas-devel@...
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/math-atlas-devel
>>
>
>
>
> --
> http://twitter.com/znmeb http://borasky-research.net
>
> "A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems." -- Paul Erdős
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Special Offer -- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE!
> Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better
> price-free! And you'll get a free "Love Thy Logs" t-shirt when you
> download Logger. Secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY!
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsisghtdev2dev
> _______________________________________________
> Math-atlas-devel mailing list
> Math-atlas-devel@...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/math-atlas-devel
>

--
*****************************************
José Luis García Pallero
jgpallero@...
(o<
/ / \
V_/_
Use Debian GNU/Linux and enjoy!
*****************************************

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download Logger. Secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY!
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_______________________________________________
Math-atlas-devel mailing list
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[whaley-8]

>It sounds like you and whoever the "entity" are that's behind ATLAS
>need to have a discussion with an attorney, and perhaps an accountant.
>As a user, I hate "academic licenses" (free in binary form to academic
>users but paid for by "commercial" users), but the reality of today's
>world is that an academic license or some form of similar license
>might be the best way to proceed with ATLAS, especially since you've
>broadened the scope of it to the growing ARM platform. Maybe there
>needs to be an "ATLAS Linear Algebra" foundation.
>
>It really *is* about money, even if you want to think it's about
>"freedom". There are hidden costs of "free as in beer". People who
>develop quality software like ATLAS deserve to be paid just as much as
>the attorneys and accountants who fight over it and the sales reps who
>sell it. ;-)

No, I wrote ATLAS to help scientists do science, not for money.  It has
so far been developed with research money and my own time.  I think it
is a good thing for commercial users to get to use it, as long as
they help with the community, and this is why I am considering LGPLv3.
Several small companies have used ATLAS, and given ATLAS patches and
so forth, and thus have been good members of the community.  My belief is that
these guys wouldn't object to the LGPL.

So, if someone sees something wrong with LGPL, I would like them to
discuss it so that I can understand the problem.  If there are other
licenses or if there are ramifications I am missing, I would like
to get all sides before making a final decision.

Thanks,
Clint

On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 8:13 AM, Clint Whaley <whaley@...> wrote:

> John,
>
>>You might look at the C++ Boost licence, this is specifically designed to allow
>>both free use of the Boost library, Standardisation of the intellectual content,
>>and commercialisation.
>
> Hmm.  I see no mention of patents at all, and what I do see does not seem
> at all different from the present BSD license.  If there is a more modern
> version of this license, can you link directly to it?
>
>>If you take the GNU path you're
>>*endorsing* the kind of legal system that also supports software
>>patents and authoritarianism.
>
> You will have explain that, because I truly see no logical way to reach
> that conclusion.
>
>>GNU chose to leverage the legal system
>>to satisfy its primary goal: open-ness. GNU licences are not, by
>>any stretch of the imagination, supporting "free" software as in
>>"freedom of use for any purpose".
>
> I agree, they put restrictions on usage to maintain openness and equal access.
> Camm (old ATLAS/debian maintainer) also mention that the GNU licenses are
> better because they assure poeple that pure parisitism will be illegal.
> Everyone can use the code, but everyone must submit their improvements
> back to the code base, so if you want to benefit from community development,
> you must also contribute to it.  As I have been more involved with large
> US corporations, I have more come to see the necessity of this.
>
>>You must think: do you approve, for example, Apple taking BSD Unix
>>and making a proprietary product with it?
>
> I don't mind people using ATLAS in proprietary products, but I must admit
> I'd like to get some credit and I would hope they would contribute
> patches, etc., since they are benefiting from that work.
>
>>Do you approve Apple
>>being "forced" to throw out GNU Gcc support in favour of LLVM just
>>because of GNU's licence policy?
>
> Can you explain this?  This is not the story as I know it, but I haven't
> studied it in detail.  My understanding is the exact opposite: Apple
> *chose* to support LLVM because they did not want to follow the GNU license.
>
> Apple seems to have a long history of taking free software, but never
> giving back to it.  I.e., they use your software in proprietary products,
> but they don't even give patches to the original authors.  In those
> cases here they were compelled to give patches by the license, they
> gave code dumps that were not useful (going on a Konquerer mailing
> list discussion I read long ago).
>
> Then, Apple wrote their App store license in such a way as to incompatible
> with GNU license, and instead of fixing their app store terms, they decided
> to go full-bore against GNU.  How do you get that they have been forced
> to do these things?
>
> In a world of individuals, I like the BSD license.  When I first did ATLAS,
> I saw the world I lived in as primarily controlled by individuals.  My
> experience these days is that much more of the academic and software
> worlds is controlled by corporations, which are by design sociopaths.
> Apple appears to me to be a primary example of this: suing everyone for
> BS like software & design patents, acquiring more patents to lock out
> others from compitition, using open source software but never giving
> back to it except where such a gift is to their exclusive benefit.
>
>>Now, the other thing to think about is: what possible litigation could arise?
>>ANY litigation is a major negative. You neither want to sue someone nor
>>be sued.
>
> Yes, I don't want to sue or be sued.  However, I also don't want my software
> to help people who want to sue other people for anticompetitive BS.
>
>>By analogy, if you put software in which you claim intellectual property rights
>>on the Internet and do not provide a reasonable way of enforcing your
>>rights, it may at least be that you have violated your own ability to claim
>>any rights at all. After all, if I can simply download your software, without
>>signing a paper saying I read and accept the licence terms,
>>who is to say I have broken any laws? What if the download is done
>>by a robot? What if that robot is a system backup?
>
> I think the GNU folks have addressed this.  They give a license to use
> their copyrighted works.  If you don't accept the license, then you
> don't have the right to use their works, and since it is copyrighted,
> you know you need a license.
>
>>My point really is: what's the point of trying to enforce a copyright with
>>possible exemptions which in fact you not only cannot enforce due to
>>lack of funds .. but probably don't even want to enforce?
>>
>>It is generally considered that in the woeful US and European legal
>>systems you actually need a licence to prevent someone taking
>>your work, copyrighting it or patenting something YOU invented,
>>and then suing YOU for breaching their rights.
>>
>>Luckily, the primary motivation in such cases is commerical gain: if you're
>>not making a commercial gain or interfering with someone else making
>>one there are no grounds for a suit.
>
> I am also considering that in a world where many developers are controlled
> by sociopathic corporations, it is necessary to put restrictions on your
> software so that it is not used by those corporations to destroy the
> freedom of others to develop code.  When they are willing to so nakedly
> restrain the freedom of others, it becomes more important to make sure
> your contributions do not help them destroy what you believe in.
>
> Thanks,
> Clint
>>
> Ed Borasky wrote:
>
> "My recommendation is
> to consult an attorney. He / she may advise creating an "entity" to
> house the intellectual property before devising a license."
>
> and there is much sense in that: a separate entity holding the
> property my provide your private assets some protection.
>
> If Google stole my software and commercialised it I'd be ecstatic!
>
> IMHO the major concern is not people doing math with your software,
> but people releasing a product (such as a programming language)
> which has the kind of licence THEY want. If you want such people to
> use your software you MUST provide the most liberal licence possible.
>
> For example if my programming language Felix were to incorporate
> Atlas as a "standard" component, your licence would have to be
> compatible with mine (BSD camp: my actual licence is FFAU:
> free for any use). Any GPL licence would conflict with that and exclude
> such use, at best I would be forced to distribute and build your product
> in a special way to ensure your software was kept "at arms length"
> from mine so your licence didn't pollute mine .. or simply not use
> your software.
>
> I have in fact spent considerable effort ensuring I did NOT incorporate
> any software polluted with Gnu licences. Unfortunate since some
> of it is very good. For example to utilise Gnu's Multiple precision
> arithmetic package I was forced to write the interface (header
> file equivalent) by hand, since generating one automatically
> from the C header would render the product "a derived work".
> A hand written interface supporting the required protocol is
> not a derived work because it is derived from the intellectual property
> but not the embodiment of it.
>
>
> The point here is to strongly consider indirect use of your product:
> it is OTHER people's licensing desires you need to think about when
> constructing your own, if you want your product to be widely used.
>
>
>
>
> --
> john skaller
> skaller@...
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Special Offer -- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE!
> Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better
> price-free! And you'll get a free "Love Thy Logs" t-shirt when you
> download Logger. Secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY!
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsisghtdev2dev
> _______________________________________________
> Math-atlas-devel mailing list
> Math-atlas-devel@...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/math-atlas-devel
>
>
> **************************************************************************
> ** R. Clint Whaley, PhD ** Assist Prof, UTSA ** www.cs.utsa.edu/~whaley **
> **************************************************************************
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Special Offer -- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE!
> Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better
> price-free! And you'll get a free "Love Thy Logs" t-shirt when you
> download Logger. Secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY!
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsisghtdev2dev
> _______________________________________________
> Math-atlas-devel mailing list
> Math-atlas-devel@...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/math-atlas-devel
>

--
http://twitter.com/znmeb http://borasky-research.net

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[whaley-8]

Andrew,

>As someone who has both a personal interest in ATLAS, while also working as
>the CTO of a decently sized software company, I wanted to just offer a
>slightly different perspective on licenses.
>
>Our company in general use a good number of open source projects (and
>are very careful to follow the terms of the licenses.) In addition to this,
>we obviously dedicate significant money into working with these libraries,
>discovering and fixing issues, and indeed extending the libraries quite
>significantly in many instances. We have often contracted people who work on
>the code in question as part of the open source community to make changes or
>improvements to us which we then submit back to the project as a whole under
>the terms of the LGPL license.

As a CTO, which license to you prefer: BSD or LGPL?  The reason I ask, is
that if you actually contribute code to the project, LGPL makes it so
others competing against you must do so as well, whereas BSD does not.
BSD definitely provides more freedom, but so far those companies who
strongly prefer it seem to prefer it for reasons that I find less than
honorable.  

Camm used this fact to argue that "good" companies prefer the GPL or LGPL
because it means that competitors can't just parasitize the common
development.  He believed I would get *more* commercial contribution
with the LGPL than with the BSD license, and that companies would feel
more comfortable helping.  What do you think of this argument?

If you prefer the BSD, can you tell me why?  The one "non-bad" reason
I know about for prefering BSD is simplicity . . . .

The need for simplicity is why I'm looking for an "off-the-shelf" license.
My feeling is that corporations that use open source already know how
to deal with the major licenses, and so changing among these well-known
licenses doesn't require major hurdles to be jumped.

>At the end of the day, companies make money of libraries and this can be a
>win/win situation because we are often fully prepared to contribute real
>money to those projects in terms of improvements and are happy to share
>those benefits back with the project. This contribution often helps a
>particular project quite significantly and in a way volunteer or academic
>contributions alone do not.

Yes, I agree.  As a matter of fact, AMD gave me some money when I was
working on my PhD to improve ATLAS's AMD performance, which helped everyone.
Sicortex did the same.  Many people working for small companies have given
me bug fixes, and helped with things like CPUID, etc.

>I am in no way underplaying the patent or IP issues that ahve become the
>scurge of our industry. That said, I would be careful to not throw the baby
>out with the bath-water ... allowing commercial use of a project ultimately
>should enouncourage more development of it and not the opposite.

I do not want to prevent commercial use of ATLAS.  I agree with you that it
is a good thing, and in the best case helps everyone (after all, many
scientists will choose to use a commercial tool, so it helps my original
goal of ATLAS).  I would like to be minimize the chance that one ATLAS user
sues another (or me) over ATLAS, and based on my experience with larger
companies, I am strongly tempted to have a license that requires
people who redistribute ATLAS to give changes back.

Thanks,
Clint

On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 9:19 AM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky <
znmeb@...> wrote:

> It sounds like you and whoever the "entity" are that's behind ATLAS
> need to have a discussion with an attorney, and perhaps an accountant.
> As a user, I hate "academic licenses" (free in binary form to academic
> users but paid for by "commercial" users), but the reality of today's
> world is that an academic license or some form of similar license
> might be the best way to proceed with ATLAS, especially since you've
> broadened the scope of it to the growing ARM platform. Maybe there
> needs to be an "ATLAS Linear Algebra" foundation.
>
> It really *is* about money, even if you want to think it's about
> "freedom". There are hidden costs of "free as in beer". People who
> develop quality software like ATLAS deserve to be paid just as much as
> the attorneys and accountants who fight over it and the sales reps who
> sell it. ;-)
>
> On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 8:13 AM, Clint Whaley <whaley@...> wrote:
> > John,
> >
> >>You might look at the C++ Boost licence, this is specifically designed to
> allow
> >>both free use of the Boost library, Standardisation of the intellectual
> content,
> >>and commercialisation.
> >
> > Hmm.  I see no mention of patents at all, and what I do see does not seem
> > at all different from the present BSD license.  If there is a more modern
> > version of this license, can you link directly to it?
> >
> >>If you take the GNU path you're
> >>*endorsing* the kind of legal system that also supports software
> >>patents and authoritarianism.
> >
> > You will have explain that, because I truly see no logical way to reach
> > that conclusion.
> >
> >>GNU chose to leverage the legal system
> >>to satisfy its primary goal: open-ness. GNU licences are not, by
> >>any stretch of the imagination, supporting "free" software as in
> >>"freedom of use for any purpose".
> >
> > I agree, they put restrictions on usage to maintain openness and equal
> access.
> > Camm (old ATLAS/debian maintainer) also mention that the GNU licenses are
> > better because they assure poeple that pure parisitism will be illegal.
> > Everyone can use the code, but everyone must submit their improvements
> > back to the code base, so if you want to benefit from community
> development,
> > you must also contribute to it.  As I have been more involved with large
> > US corporations, I have more come to see the necessity of this.
> >
> >>You must think: do you approve, for example, Apple taking BSD Unix
> >>and making a proprietary product with it?
> >
> > I don't mind people using ATLAS in proprietary products, but I must admit
> > I'd like to get some credit and I would hope they would contribute
> > patches, etc., since they are benefiting from that work.
> >
> >>Do you approve Apple
> >>being "forced" to throw out GNU Gcc support in favour of LLVM just
> >>because of GNU's licence policy?
> >
> > Can you explain this?  This is not the story as I know it, but I haven't
> > studied it in detail.  My understanding is the exact opposite: Apple
> > *chose* to support LLVM because they did not want to follow the GNU
> license.
> >
> > Apple seems to have a long history of taking free software, but never
> > giving back to it.  I.e., they use your software in proprietary products,
> > but they don't even give patches to the original authors.  In those
> > cases here they were compelled to give patches by the license, they
> > gave code dumps that were not useful (going on a Konquerer mailing
> > list discussion I read long ago).
> >
> > Then, Apple wrote their App store license in such a way as to
> incompatible
> > with GNU license, and instead of fixing their app store terms, they
> decided
> > to go full-bore against GNU.  How do you get that they have been forced
> > to do these things?
> >
> > In a world of individuals, I like the BSD license.  When I first did
> ATLAS,
> > I saw the world I lived in as primarily controlled by individuals.  My
> > experience these days is that much more of the academic and software
> > worlds is controlled by corporations, which are by design sociopaths.
> > Apple appears to me to be a primary example of this: suing everyone for
> > BS like software & design patents, acquiring more patents to lock out
> > others from compitition, using open source software but never giving
> > back to it except where such a gift is to their exclusive benefit.
> >
> >>Now, the other thing to think about is: what possible litigation could
> arise?
> >>ANY litigation is a major negative. You neither want to sue someone nor
> >>be sued.
> >
> > Yes, I don't want to sue or be sued.  However, I also don't want my
> software
> > to help people who want to sue other people for anticompetitive BS.
> >
> >>By analogy, if you put software in which you claim intellectual property
> rights
> >>on the Internet and do not provide a reasonable way of enforcing your
> >>rights, it may at least be that you have violated your own ability to
> claim
> >>any rights at all. After all, if I can simply download your software,
> without
> >>signing a paper saying I read and accept the licence terms,
> >>who is to say I have broken any laws? What if the download is done
> >>by a robot? What if that robot is a system backup?
> >
> > I think the GNU folks have addressed this.  They give a license to use
> > their copyrighted works.  If you don't accept the license, then you
> > don't have the right to use their works, and since it is copyrighted,
> > you know you need a license.
> >
> >>My point really is: what's the point of trying to enforce a copyright
> with
> >>possible exemptions which in fact you not only cannot enforce due to
> >>lack of funds .. but probably don't even want to enforce?
> >>
> >>It is generally considered that in the woeful US and European legal
> >>systems you actually need a licence to prevent someone taking
> >>your work, copyrighting it or patenting something YOU invented,
> >>and then suing YOU for breaching their rights.
> >>
> >>Luckily, the primary motivation in such cases is commerical gain: if
> you're
> >>not making a commercial gain or interfering with someone else making
> >>one there are no grounds for a suit.
> >
> > I am also considering that in a world where many developers are
> controlled
> > by sociopathic corporations, it is necessary to put restrictions on your
> > software so that it is not used by those corporations to destroy the
> > freedom of others to develop code.  When they are willing to so nakedly
> > restrain the freedom of others, it becomes more important to make sure
> > your contributions do not help them destroy what you believe in.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Clint
> >>
> > Ed Borasky wrote:
> >
> > "My recommendation is
> > to consult an attorney. He / she may advise creating an "entity" to
> > house the intellectual property before devising a license."
> >
> > and there is much sense in that: a separate entity holding the
> > property my provide your private assets some protection.
> >
> > If Google stole my software and commercialised it I'd be ecstatic!
> >
> > IMHO the major concern is not people doing math with your software,
> > but people releasing a product (such as a programming language)
> > which has the kind of licence THEY want. If you want such people to
> > use your software you MUST provide the most liberal licence possible.
> >
> > For example if my programming language Felix were to incorporate
> > Atlas as a "standard" component, your licence would have to be
> > compatible with mine (BSD camp: my actual licence is FFAU:
> > free for any use). Any GPL licence would conflict with that and exclude
> > such use, at best I would be forced to distribute and build your product
> > in a special way to ensure your software was kept "at arms length"
> > from mine so your licence didn't pollute mine .. or simply not use
> > your software.
> >
> > I have in fact spent considerable effort ensuring I did NOT incorporate
> > any software polluted with Gnu licences. Unfortunate since some
> > of it is very good. For example to utilise Gnu's Multiple precision
> > arithmetic package I was forced to write the interface (header
> > file equivalent) by hand, since generating one automatically
> > from the C header would render the product "a derived work".
> > A hand written interface supporting the required protocol is
> > not a derived work because it is derived from the intellectual property
> > but not the embodiment of it.
> >
> >
> > The point here is to strongly consider indirect use of your product:
> > it is OTHER people's licensing desires you need to think about when
> > constructing your own, if you want your product to be widely used.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > john skaller
> > skaller@...
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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> > _______________________________________________
> > Math-atlas-devel mailing list
> > Math-atlas-devel@...
> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/math-atlas-devel
> >
> >
> >
> **************************************************************************
> > ** R. Clint Whaley, PhD ** Assist Prof, UTSA ** www.cs.utsa.edu/~whaley**
> >
> **************************************************************************
> >
> >
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> >
>
>
>
> --
> http://twitter.com/znmeb http://borasky-research.net
>
> "A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems." -- Paul
> Erdős
>
>
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**************************************************************************

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[Brooks Moses-4]

Clint Whaley wrote, at 9/4/2011 10:25 AM:
> So, if someone sees something wrong with LGPL, I would like them to
> discuss it so that I can understand the problem.  If there are other
> licenses or if there are ramifications I am missing, I would like
> to get all sides before making a final decision.

This is as good a place for me to jump into the conversation as any, I
think.

To introduce where I'm coming from: I lead a team that does runtime
libraries for high-performance embedded computing, and we rely quite
heavily on ATLAS.  We're part of a larger team that does a lot of work
with open-source software, particularly with compilers and debuggers, so
we have a lot of experience using code with different licenses in
commercial work.


The LGPL has some very significant problems for us in this sort of use,
which a license such as Apache or BSD does not.

First is simply the obligation that anyone distributing a library that's
LGPL-licensed must also provide access to the exact source used to build
the library -- and must assure that access to it is available even if
the upstream sources go away.  As it happens, we already do this with
ATLAS, even though it's BSD-licensed; it's just good practice, and it
makes our customers happy.

However, the LGPL would require that we pass this requirement along as
an obligation to our customers. Even though they are not doing anything
with ATLAS other than installing it onto hardware as an internal part of
our products, they must have mechanisms in place to ensure that the
source code is available to their customers for the relevant period of
time, and that it is exactly the source code corresponding to what's
installed.  Doing this to the satisfaction of a large-company legal
department is a quite expensive undertaking, if it's possible at all.


Second, and even more problematic, is the requirement that the end
recipient of a product that uses LGPL-licensed software be able to swap
out that software for another version.  Even aside from the issues of
whether LGPLv3 (in reaction to Tivo's interpretation of v2) requires
that the vendor of an embedded device provide access to reprogram the
hardware -- which of course adds hardware expense, as well as being
quite problematic in an environment such as aerospace or medical imaging
devices with regulatory requirements and high liability -- this is
problematic simply on the software end.

With a dynamic library, the LGPL is relatively easy to address from a
software perspective; you can just replace the installed library file
with another compatible one.  With a static library like the standard
ATLAS builds, however, the LGPL requires that either you provide your
sources or you provide the unlinked object code for anything you
distribute that links to the library, along with the means to re-link it
with a new copy.  Providing the object code is, in most cases, not
really practical -- I am unaware of one single product anywhere that
does this.  So, in practice, for static libraries the LGPL is
essentially equivalent to the GPL as far as the source-code disclosure
requirements it places on the software that links to it.

And, as I mentioned, we're in the business of selling larger libraries
that include ATLAS within them (and, for many platforms, these are
static libraries).  This is not just a requirement for us; it would be a
requirement that we must transfer to our end users.


Beyond those major issues, there are some minor issues -- the LGPL
pretty much precludes distributing the code under a binding NDA, which
is a legal hassle (at least!) in cases where we are doing contract work
for a semiconductor company on unreleased hardware, as we happen to be
doing right now.


Meanwhile, on the other side of the fence, there is this question that
you addressed to Andrew, but I'd also like to comment on:

> Camm used this fact to argue that "good" companies prefer the GPL or LGPL
> because it means that competitors can't just parasitize the common
> development.  He believed I would get *more* commercial contribution
> with the LGPL than with the BSD license, and that companies would feel
> more comfortable helping.  What do you think of this argument?

Personally, I think this argument is exactly backwards.  As you noted
with Apple and GCC, the GPL does not prevent parasitizing the common
development for proprietary gain -- Apple simply branched the code and
did not contribute things upstream, and so even though they provided
source, it was of little use to anyone.  Likewise, there are several
companies that simply rebuild the GCC sources from our products without
doing any compiler development of their own, and sell them in direct
competition to us.

To a first approximation, we've found that the effort of meaningfully
contributing code upstream beyond than just doing our own source dumps
(sufficient to satisfy the minimum requirements of the GPL) is of the
same order of magnitude as developing the code in the first place.
That's a significant barrier, and you won't get people to cross it by
license requirements, whether you choose LGPL or BSD.

The reason companies do upstream submission is that it's directly
valuable to them to do so.  Once the code is upstream, we no longer need
to pay the ongoing costs of updating it to adapt to other upstream
changes, and other people will contribute to keeping it from
bit-rotting.  New and improved upstream versions will contain the
changes that we need for our internal use, and so it's cheap to upgrade.
 Likewise, we get benefits from ensuring a healthy upstream community
that will improve the software.

(Apple's use of GCC is a good example here, too, of the costs of not
sending changes upstream.  They basically got stuck at a rather old
version because they'd diverged so far that it wasn't feasible to merge
in upstream changes any more.)

The thing is, though, that this is valuable only insofar as the end
product is something that the company can freely use -- and a license
like the LGPL that adds more obligations limits that usability, and thus
limits the incentives for companies to participate.


So, with all that said, I would very strongly encourage you to choose
the Apache license (or remaining with the BSD license) over the LGPL.
The LGPL has some very serious problems for statically-linked libraries,
for inclusion in components of larger systems, and for things that go
into embedded end products.  To put it bluntly, ATLAS is a project that
we've used for years and we want to contribute to because it is
something we can give to our end users without restrictions, and that's
possible because of its BSD-like license.

Thanks,
- Brooks


--
Brooks Moses
CodeSourcery / Mentor Graphics
brooks@...

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[john skaller]

On 05/09/2011, at 2:49 AM, Andrew Cross wrote:

>. allowing commercial use of a project ultimately should enouncourage more development of it and not the opposite.

I think this is dependent on the use. Some users will be using "as is" with a few generalisations,
a few bug fixes, some deletions (don't want to support that part) and perhaps some additions:
such a use is well suited to "contributing back" to the library and working with the
original developers.

But there are other circumstances, for example I guess Apple modifying gcc is
making environmental changes to suit OSX environment and XCode Gui which
is of little use to others, but too hard to separate from the formerly mentioned
kinds of modifications to contribute anything back.

And then there's the extreme hassle of communicating with open source
developers in an effective manner: patches are a very bad way to do this.
Even using Git makes contributions difficult to manage: the easiest way,
direct write access to repository requires considerable trust.

So one can end up with forks where the ability to contribute is lost.

--
john skaller
skaller@...





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[john skaller]

On 05/09/2011, at 1:13 AM, Clint Whaley wrote:

> John,
>
>> You might look at the C++ Boost licence, this is specifically designed to allow
>> both free use of the Boost library, Standardisation of the intellectual content,
>> and commercialisation.
>
> Hmm.  I see no mention of patents at all, and what I do see does not seem
> at all different from the present BSD license.

I should think it is fairly similar, however it was constructed by lawyers specifically
to ensure commercial use and standardisation was possible since the developers
were both commercial users and participants in the C++ standardisation process
intending to develop libraries for both uses.

>> If you take the GNU path you're
>> *endorsing* the kind of legal system that also supports software
>> patents and authoritarianism.
>
> You will have explain that, because I truly see no logical way to reach
> that conclusion.

If you outright reject the right of any body to govern or own
any kind of intellectual property, then you would not be able to leverage
copyright laws to establish "copyleft". If you choose to simply make source
code available freely without legal nonsense, you are to some extent
denying such authority as opposed to endorsing it.

>> You must think: do you approve, for example, Apple taking BSD Unix
>> and making a proprietary product with it?
>
> I don't mind people using ATLAS in proprietary products, but I must admit
> I'd like to get some credit and I would hope they would contribute
> patches, etc., since they are benefiting from that work.

The question is whether you would attempt to  enforce that requirement
via the legal system (i.e. chose a GNU licence) and thereby exclude
the incorporation of derived works into closed source software.

>
>> Do you approve Apple
>> being "forced" to throw out GNU Gcc support in favour of LLVM just
>> because of GNU's licence policy?
>
> Can you explain this?  This is not the story as I know it, but I haven't
> studied it in detail.  My understanding is the exact opposite: Apple
> *chose* to support LLVM because they did not want to follow the GNU license.

Please see the "quotation marks" around the word "forced", it wasn't
meant literally. Perhaps I could have explained this better.

>
> In a world of individuals, I like the BSD license.  When I first did ATLAS,
> I saw the world I lived in as primarily controlled by individuals.  My
> experience these days is that much more of the academic and software
> worlds is controlled by corporations, which are by design sociopaths.

:-)

> Apple appears to me to be a primary example of this: suing everyone for
> BS like software & design patents, acquiring more patents to lock out
> others from compitition, using open source software but never giving
> back to it except where such a gift is to their exclusive benefit.

Yes, however consider this: has Linux been successful breaking Microsofts
stronghold on the OS market? No. It has a nice niche market.

Has Apple? No, but it is well on the way, by choosing to provide the "Mac"
GUI interface for consumers but Unix underneath for techno-geeks including
much of the open source software base.

I live on a boat. I needed wireless internet. I had only two choses: Windows
or Mac (no wireless ISP's here provide drivers for Linux). Today I have a solution
(3G - WiFi) which allows me to finally use Linux, but 4 years ago I bought a Mac.
[Which runs Windows too]


> I am also considering that in a world where many developers are controlled
> by sociopathic corporations, it is necessary to put restrictions on your
> software so that it is not used by those corporations to destroy the
> freedom of others to develop code.  When they are willing to so nakedly
> restrain the freedom of others, it becomes more important to make sure
> your contributions do not help them destroy what you believe in.

Of course that is your judgement, because you are also preventing others
who may agree with your view of these corporations but choose to use
a different licence from using your software.

Oh .. and of course .. you aren't preventing those corporations doing what
they like, just making it illegal (which is not the same as preventing them
unless you can fund a suitable action against them if they do indeed
violate your licence).

In my view ..the most vile of these "corporations" is in fact the very
body that makes the laws -- governments.


--
john skaller
skaller@...





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[john skaller]

On 05/09/2011, at 3:25 AM, Clint Whaley wrote:

>
> So, if someone sees something wrong with LGPL, I would like them to
> discuss it so that I can understand the problem.  If there are other
> licenses or if there are ramifications I am missing, I would like
> to get all sides before making a final decision.

The problem I would have with LGPL is that if I build an interface to LGPL
software it is a derived work and must be open source. I don't care about
that myself but it means my software *using* that interface is less appealing
to my target audience which is everyone *including closed source commercial
developers*. I want my software to be FFAU (free for any use). To maintain
that status I cannot permit any software included (in the core) to be
tainted with (L)GPL like licences.

In fact my core product uses Ocaml, and Ocaml uses libraries with
LGPL "with linking exception" licence: a special exception is made
to allow static linkage of library code without impediment.

--
john skaller
skaller@...





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[john skaller]

On 05/09/2011, at 5:37 AM, Brooks Moses wrote:
>
> However, the LGPL would require that we pass this requirement along as
> an obligation to our customers.

That's the problem I see in a nutshell. It's not the users of ATLAS that
care but *their* users.

--
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skaller@...





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[whaley-8]

>I should think it is fairly similar, however it was constructed by lawyers specifically
>to ensure commercial use and standardisation was possible since the developers
>were both commercial users and participants in the C++ standardisation process
>intending to develop libraries for both uses.

But since my main reason is patents, and that license doesn't mention patents
in anyway, I don't see what the use is?

>>> If you take the GNU path you're
>>> *endorsing* the kind of legal system that also supports software
>>> patents and authoritarianism.
>>
>> You will have explain that, because I truly see no logical way to reach
>> that conclusion.
>
>If you outright reject the right of any body to govern or own
>any kind of intellectual property, then you would not be able to leverage
>copyright laws to establish "copyleft". If you choose to simply make source
>code available freely without legal nonsense, you are to some extent
>denying such authority as opposed to endorsing it.

I don't think that even begins to fly.  In any event, it is software patents
that I think are entirely bogus and a wholly a bad.  Copyright is a completely
different animal.

>> I don't mind people using ATLAS in proprietary products, but I must admit
>> I'd like to get some credit and I would hope they would contribute
>> patches, etc., since they are benefiting from that work.
>
>The question is whether you would attempt to  enforce that requirement
>via the legal system (i.e. chose a GNU licence) and thereby exclude
>the incorporation of derived works into closed source software.

Not denying incorporation is why there's a LGPL vs. GPL.

>Please see the "quotation marks" around the word "forced", it wasn't
>meant literally. Perhaps I could have explained this better.

Yes, to my poor eyes you seem to have gotten the forced backwards :)

>> Apple appears to me to be a primary example of this: suing everyone for
>> BS like software & design patents, acquiring more patents to lock out
>> others from compitition, using open source software but never giving
>> back to it except where such a gift is to their exclusive benefit.
>
>Yes, however consider this: has Linux been successful breaking Microsofts
>stronghold on the OS market? No. It has a nice niche market.

Depends on where you sit.  In HPC, MS is niche and linux is overwhelmingly
dominant (something >90% of the top500 machines run linux).  If you look
at servers, MS is not dominant (good mix of linux, MS, and even old-school
unix).  I think you are talking about desktop/laptop use where MS is
overwhelmingly dominant.

>Has Apple? No, but it is well on the way, by choosing to provide the "Mac"
>GUI interface for consumers but Unix underneath for techno-geeks including
>much of the open source software base.

Last time I checked, the number of Mac OS users on the desktop was roughly
the same percentage as Linux, but I'm not sure what this has to do with
anything . . .

>> I am also considering that in a world where many developers are controlled
>> by sociopathic corporations, it is necessary to put restrictions on your
>> software so that it is not used by those corporations to destroy the
>> freedom of others to develop code.  When they are willing to so nakedly
>> restrain the freedom of others, it becomes more important to make sure
>> your contributions do not help them destroy what you believe in.
>
>Of course that is your judgement, because you are also preventing others
>who may agree with your view of these corporations but choose to use
>a different licence from using your software.

That will obviously depend on the license and what they are doing.

>Oh .. and of course .. you aren't preventing those corporations doing what
>they like, just making it illegal (which is not the same as preventing them
>unless you can fund a suitable action against them if they do indeed
>violate your licence).

Even though corps often ignore laws, it is usually a risk assessment.

>The problem I would have with LGPL is that if I build an interface to LGPL
>software it is a derived work and must be open source. I don't care about
>that myself but it means my software *using* that interface is less appealing
>to my target audience which is everyone *including closed source commercial
>developers*. I want my software to be FFAU (free for any use). To maintain
>that status I cannot permit any software included (in the core) to be
>tainted with (L)GPL like licences.

Something like this was how I came to use BSD in the first place.  The fact
that it forced BSD to change its license along with forcing the corps to
do things irritated me.  However, I do see why they do what the do, and
I haven't seen any better approach for stopping anti-social behavior
that is easier on other types of free software, unfortunately.

>In fact my core product uses Ocaml, and Ocaml uses libraries with
>LGPL "with linking exception" licence: a special exception is made
>to allow static linkage of library code without impediment.

Thanks very much for this pointer!  If I do decide to change to the
LGPL, it is clear I would need to make *at least* that modification to
it.  I've downloaded ocaml and scoped how it made the relaxation.
Very interesting.

>> However, the LGPL would require that we pass this requirement along as
>> an obligation to our customers.
>
>That's the problem I see in a nutshell. It's not the users of ATLAS that
>care but *their* users.

OK, so the problem that you guys are bringing out is this:
(1) You use ATLAS in a library that you sell to company B
(2) Company B gets a license to sell you library bundled with theirs, but
    because they are redistributing the ATLAS you have modified, then they
    must make your ATLAS source available?

Thanks,
Clint

**************************************************************************
** R. Clint Whaley, PhD ** Assist Prof, UTSA ** www.cs.utsa.edu/~whaley **
**************************************************************************

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[Brooks Moses-4]

Clint Whaley wrote, at 9/5/2011 7:33 AM:
>> In fact my core product uses Ocaml, and Ocaml uses libraries with
>> LGPL "with linking exception" licence: a special exception is made
>> to allow static linkage of library code without impediment.
>
> Thanks very much for this pointer!  If I do decide to change to the
> LGPL, it is clear I would need to make *at least* that modification to
> it.  I've downloaded ocaml and scoped how it made the relaxation.
> Very interesting.

For the record, the concept of "GPL plus exception" is also present for
the bits of runtime library that come with GCC (and thus become part of
everything GCC compiles):
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gcc-exception.html

- Brooks

--
Brooks Moses
CodeSourcery / Mentor Graphics
brooks@...
1-510-354-6729

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[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky-3]

Last time I checked, about 89.5% of desktops / laptops were Windows,
9.5% MacOS X and 1% Linux. But Mac laptops are gaining at the expense
of Windows and Linux. Just about every developer, writer, creative or
marketing person I know has a Mac laptop.

I just bought a new laptop myself - an Asus with an Intel i5 in it.
I'm dual-booting it with openSUSE 11.4. But I've been using Linux
since 2000. And I *almost* went for a MacBook Air!

On Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 7:33 AM, Clint Whaley <whaley@...> wrote:

>>I should think it is fairly similar, however it was constructed by lawyers specifically
>>to ensure commercial use and standardisation was possible since the developers
>>were both commercial users and participants in the C++ standardisation process
>>intending to develop libraries for both uses.
>
> But since my main reason is patents, and that license doesn't mention patents
> in anyway, I don't see what the use is?
>
>>>> If you take the GNU path you're
>>>> *endorsing* the kind of legal system that also supports software
>>>> patents and authoritarianism.
>>>
>>> You will have explain that, because I truly see no logical way to reach
>>> that conclusion.
>>
>>If you outright reject the right of any body to govern or own
>>any kind of intellectual property, then you would not be able to leverage
>>copyright laws to establish "copyleft". If you choose to simply make source
>>code available freely without legal nonsense, you are to some extent
>>denying such authority as opposed to endorsing it.
>
> I don't think that even begins to fly.  In any event, it is software patents
> that I think are entirely bogus and a wholly a bad.  Copyright is a completely
> different animal.
>
>>> I don't mind people using ATLAS in proprietary products, but I must admit
>>> I'd like to get some credit and I would hope they would contribute
>>> patches, etc., since they are benefiting from that work.
>>
>>The question is whether you would attempt to  enforce that requirement
>>via the legal system (i.e. chose a GNU licence) and thereby exclude
>>the incorporation of derived works into closed source software.
>
> Not denying incorporation is why there's a LGPL vs. GPL.
>
>>Please see the "quotation marks" around the word "forced", it wasn't
>>meant literally. Perhaps I could have explained this better.
>
> Yes, to my poor eyes you seem to have gotten the forced backwards :)
>
>>> Apple appears to me to be a primary example of this: suing everyone for
>>> BS like software & design patents, acquiring more patents to lock out
>>> others from compitition, using open source software but never giving
>>> back to it except where such a gift is to their exclusive benefit.
>>
>>Yes, however consider this: has Linux been successful breaking Microsofts
>>stronghold on the OS market? No. It has a nice niche market.
>
> Depends on where you sit.  In HPC, MS is niche and linux is overwhelmingly
> dominant (something >90% of the top500 machines run linux).  If you look
> at servers, MS is not dominant (good mix of linux, MS, and even old-school
> unix).  I think you are talking about desktop/laptop use where MS is
> overwhelmingly dominant.
>
>>Has Apple? No, but it is well on the way, by choosing to provide the "Mac"
>>GUI interface for consumers but Unix underneath for techno-geeks including
>>much of the open source software base.
>
> Last time I checked, the number of Mac OS users on the desktop was roughly
> the same percentage as Linux, but I'm not sure what this has to do with
> anything . . .
>
>>> I am also considering that in a world where many developers are controlled
>>> by sociopathic corporations, it is necessary to put restrictions on your
>>> software so that it is not used by those corporations to destroy the
>>> freedom of others to develop code.  When they are willing to so nakedly
>>> restrain the freedom of others, it becomes more important to make sure
>>> your contributions do not help them destroy what you believe in.
>>
>>Of course that is your judgement, because you are also preventing others
>>who may agree with your view of these corporations but choose to use
>>a different licence from using your software.
>
> That will obviously depend on the license and what they are doing.
>
>>Oh .. and of course .. you aren't preventing those corporations doing what
>>they like, just making it illegal (which is not the same as preventing them
>>unless you can fund a suitable action against them if they do indeed
>>violate your licence).
>
> Even though corps often ignore laws, it is usually a risk assessment.
>
>>The problem I would have with LGPL is that if I build an interface to LGPL
>>software it is a derived work and must be open source. I don't care about
>>that myself but it means my software *using* that interface is less appealing
>>to my target audience which is everyone *including closed source commercial
>>developers*. I want my software to be FFAU (free for any use). To maintain
>>that status I cannot permit any software included (in the core) to be
>>tainted with (L)GPL like licences.
>
> Something like this was how I came to use BSD in the first place.  The fact
> that it forced BSD to change its license along with forcing the corps to
> do things irritated me.  However, I do see why they do what the do, and
> I haven't seen any better approach for stopping anti-social behavior
> that is easier on other types of free software, unfortunately.
>
>>In fact my core product uses Ocaml, and Ocaml uses libraries with
>>LGPL "with linking exception" licence: a special exception is made
>>to allow static linkage of library code without impediment.
>
> Thanks very much for this pointer!  If I do decide to change to the
> LGPL, it is clear I would need to make *at least* that modification to
> it.  I've downloaded ocaml and scoped how it made the relaxation.
> Very interesting.
>
>>> However, the LGPL would require that we pass this requirement along as
>>> an obligation to our customers.
>>
>>That's the problem I see in a nutshell. It's not the users of ATLAS that
>>care but *their* users.
>
> OK, so the problem that you guys are bringing out is this:
> (1) You use ATLAS in a library that you sell to company B
> (2) Company B gets a license to sell you library bundled with theirs, but
>    because they are redistributing the ATLAS you have modified, then they
>    must make your ATLAS source available?
>
> Thanks,
> Clint
>
> **************************************************************************
> ** R. Clint Whaley, PhD ** Assist Prof, UTSA ** www.cs.utsa.edu/~whaley **
> **************************************************************************
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Special Offer -- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE!
> Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better
> price-free! And you'll get a free "Love Thy Logs" t-shirt when you
> download Logger. Secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY!
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsisghtdev2dev
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> Math-atlas-devel mailing list
> Math-atlas-devel@...
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>

--
http://twitter.com/znmeb http://borasky-research.net

"A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems." -- Paul Erdős

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[john skaller]

On 06/09/2011, at 12:33 AM, Clint Whaley wrote:

>> I should think it is fairly similar, however it was constructed by lawyers specifically
>> to ensure commercial use and standardisation was possible since the developers
>> were both commercial users and participants in the C++ standardisation process
>> intending to develop libraries for both uses.
>
> But since my main reason is patents, and that license doesn't mention patents
> in anyway, I don't see what the use is?

A licence is a release from the protection of copyright, it has no bearing on
patents. AFAIK there are only two protections from patents:

a) Existing commercial processes/practice cannot be patented (by ANYONE,
not even the developer)

b) A prior patent

A patent must be taken out before the product is marketed so if you put
some software on the internet for use (NOT research/testing/development)
then the embodied patentable intellectual property is no longer patentable.

IANAL and all that. I myself developed some patentable algorithms which
were subsequently put in use and now it is too late for me to patent them.
The client I developed them for can't patent them either.

Well thats "in theory". In practice patents are largely terrorist tools:
they exist to frighten people into making licencing agreements or not
using the idea for fear of legal action. Meaning someone MIGHT steal your
idea and use or patent it whether or not the idea is already in use or already patented.

Unless you have the funds to challenge such behaviour you have no recourse.

The only good thing about patents: they don't last very long.

>> Yes, however consider this: has Linux been successful breaking Microsofts
>> stronghold on the OS market? No. It has a nice niche market.
>
> Depends on where you sit.  In HPC, MS is niche and linux is overwhelmingly
> dominant (something >90% of the top500 machines run linux).

Sure but HPC is a tiny fraction of the global market.

>> Of course that is your judgement, because you are also preventing others
>> who may agree with your view of these corporations but choose to use
>> a different licence from using your software.
>
> That will obviously depend on the license and what they are doing.

Yes of course but that still affects a percentage of possible users.


> Something like this was how I came to use BSD in the first place.  The fact
> that it forced BSD to change its license along with forcing the corps to
> do things irritated me.  However, I do see why they do what the do, and
> I haven't seen any better approach for stopping anti-social behavior
> that is easier on other types of free software, unfortunately.

Is it you "job" to stop anti-social behaviour? The ability to behave
anti-socially is a *consequence* of freedom.

If I desire the freedom to play Chopin very loudly -- I may have to put
up with others playing Rolling Stones loudly too :)

>>> However, the LGPL would require that we pass this requirement along as
>>> an obligation to our customers.
>>
>> That's the problem I see in a nutshell. It's not the users of ATLAS that
>> care but *their* users.
>
> OK, so the problem that you guys are bringing out is this:
> (1) You use ATLAS in a library that you sell to company B
> (2) Company B gets a license to sell you library bundled with theirs, but
>   because they are redistributing the ATLAS you have modified, then they
>   must make your ATLAS source available?

I think this an oversimplification. My scenario: I develop a *programming language*
that provides advanced mathematical capabilities. That is supported by the compiler
being aware of how Atlas is constructed and tuned. The compiler generates
C source code which may even grab parts of modified Atlas sources and weave
them into the generated code, as well as using the library in a more conventional
manner (that is, it may *inline* some Atlas routines as well as just calling them
with standard C calling protocols).

The resulting output must belong entirely to the client programmer: no one is going
to use a compiler than generates code from their input A that they own outright
unless the output B is also owned by them outright.

The point is that there is no hard boundary between things in computing which
is why I think (L)GPL is load of rubbish. It tries to distinguish things like
"static linkage" and "dynamic linkage" which is absurd and unfounded: these
things are an artefact of some technologies but make no sense in others.
Many modern (academic) compilers provide partial compilation, since
compilation is largely a matter of starting with "no rules" and gradually
introducing restrictions until a (family) of solution(s) is found.

Simple example: C source -> LLVM bytecode --> machine code.
Woops! Doesn't fit the archaic Unix/C model does it? How about
JIT compilers? So how can all the rubbish in GPL/LGPL be applied?

So what can you do? Well, you can also look into "dual licencing".

This means you release the code under BOTH BSD and LGPL.
You own the copyright so you can do that. The only issue is when
people contribute patches back you have to get them to agree to
entirely relinquish any copyright claims, i.e agree that their patches
might be covered by BSD and not just LGPL, even if they're working
with a LGPL licenced copy.

In fact, you might release the source under GPL. And then agree,
one at a time, with any user, to give them another licence that suits them.
Of course if you have many users you might want to employ a secretary to
administer this complex arrangement .. ;(


--
john skaller
skaller@...





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