Sibernetic lacks any license information

[msasinski]

It's pointless to work on/use the code that is not released under an open source license. Please fix.

[slarson]

Fixed by: https://github.com/openworm/Smoothed-Particle-Hydrodynamics/commit/dffdb884aba2623b46e99f7ebc79f373db8bf464 thanks for catching this.

[msasinski]

Thanks, but I believe that the author of the code is the only one with authority to change the License information. In reality it's preferable that you contact each and every one of the people that committed code to this repository, and ask them under which licenses they want to make the code available. Recommended reading: http://oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/opensourceyourcode

[slarson]

Per the website, all code under repos under the OpenWorm org is MIT licensed.

[msasinski]

Website is not enough. Someone can get to github without going to the website. Also, as you can imagine, someone could download the code, and at a later date you could decide to change the license info on the website. Would that invalidate the license?

[msasinski]

To make my point clear , here is another issue: you release Geppetto together with Virgo Server. Obviously Virgo is not MIT licensed, and you can't relicense it under MIT so the footer does not apply here and could cause some confusion. I'm sorry, but software licensing is not as easy as slapping one sentence in the footer.

[slarson]

Kind contributors @skhayrulin @a-palyanov @tarelli @vellamike @credentiality @Neurophile @leptonverde @charles-cooper @emcgowen

Any concerns about the MIT license on the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (Sibernetic) code base you contributed to? https://github.com/openworm/Smoothed-Particle-Hydrodynamics

Thanks!

[vellamike]

MIT is fine by me.

The website should be enough btw, as long as intention is clear.

On 24 April 2014 00:14, Stephen Larson notifications@github.com wrote:

Kind contributors @skhayrulin https://github.com/skhayrulin @a-palyanovhttps://github.com/a-palyanov @tarelli https://github.com/tarelli @vellamikehttps://github.com/vellamike @credentiality https://github.com/credentiality @Neurophilehttps://github.com/Neurophile @leptonverde https://github.com/leptonverde @charles-cooperhttps://github.com/charles-cooper @emcgowen https://github.com/emcgowen

Any concerns about the MIT license on the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (Sibernetic) code base you contributed to? https://github.com/openworm/Smoothed-Particle-Hydrodynamics

Thanks!

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/openworm/OpenWorm/issues/199#issuecomment-41226177 .

[credentiality]

I hereby release the tiny patch I contributed into the public domain, so feel free to use whatever license you like.

On Wed, Apr 23, 2014 at 4:22 PM, Mike Vella notifications@github.comwrote:

MIT is fine by me.

The website should be enough btw, as long as intention is clear.

On 24 April 2014 00:14, Stephen Larson notifications@github.com wrote:

Kind contributors @skhayrulin https://github.com/skhayrulin @a-palyanovhttps://github.com/a-palyanov @tarelli https://github.com/tarelli @vellamike< https://github.com/vellamike> @credentiality https://github.com/credentiality @Neurophile< https://github.com/Neurophile> @leptonverde https://github.com/leptonverde @charles-cooper< https://github.com/charles-cooper> @emcgowen https://github.com/emcgowen

Any concerns about the MIT license on the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (Sibernetic) code base you contributed to? https://github.com/openworm/Smoothed-Particle-Hydrodynamics

Thanks!

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub< https://github.com/openworm/OpenWorm/issues/199#issuecomment-41226177> .

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/openworm/OpenWorm/issues/199#issuecomment-41226720 .

[Neurophile]

MIT is OK, though I would prefer to see this under GPL or LGPL. For best practice, at a minimum there should be a license file in the git repo and each source file should reference that file in comments.

[vellamike]

I'm generally a fan of GPL/LGPL but in this case it could cause some headaches because of it's viral nature.

On 24 April 2014 04:00, Neurophile notifications@github.com wrote:

MIT is OK, though I would prefer to see this under GPL or LGPL. For best practice, at a minimum there should be a license file in the git repo and each source file should reference that file in comments.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/openworm/OpenWorm/issues/199#issuecomment-41238162 .

[Neurophile]

That's the whole point. Is there resistance to GPL in academic software?

[vellamike]

Not at all, I would say quite the opposite actually - GPL is very popular in academia.

However we do use software like Scipy (BSD) in OW and I think we would be violating GPL restrictions if we used a GPL license - correct me if I'm wrong about that though.

On 24 April 2014 04:09, Neurophile notifications@github.com wrote:

That's the whole point. Is there resistance to GPL in academic software?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/openworm/OpenWorm/issues/199#issuecomment-41238510 .

[Neurophile]

Accessing a library or another complete software package through its API (as we are doing with SciPy) does not create any licensing obligations at all. There are no restrictions on that type of use in any of the major open source licenses (MIT, BSD, GPL). There is no way for GPL to "infect" SciPy because we are not using or modifying any of the SciPy source code in our project. Even if we were to take some portion of a BSD project directly into our repo, for example if there was some particular algorithm we wanted to use and it would be better if it was compiled directly in our source code, only our new version of that specific code would then have GPL licensing attached to it; there is no way for GPL to travel backwards and somehow change the license on a contributing project from BSD to GPL.

Your specific concern expressed above is covered in Section 5 of GPL v3: "A compilation of a covered work with other separate and independent works, which are not by their nature extensions of the covered work, and which are not combined with it such as to form a larger program, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an “aggregate” if the compilation and its resulting copyright are not used to limit the access or legal rights of the compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit. Inclusion of a covered work in an aggregate does not cause this License to apply to the other parts of the aggregate."

[vellamike]

Thanks for the clarification Chris - that's very useful information.

I'm happy with GPL, it does seem more in keeping with our ethos - but for the main part I'm happy with any open source license.

All the best, Mike

On 24 April 2014 05:09, Neurophile notifications@github.com wrote:

Accessing a library or another complete software package through its API (as we are doing with SciPy) does not create any licensing obligations at all. There are no restrictions on that type of use in any of the major open source licenses (MIT, BSD, GPL). There is no way for GPL to "infect" SciPy because we are not using or modifying any of the SciPy source code in our project. Even if we were to take some portion of a BSD project directly into our repo, for example if there was some particular algorithm we wanted to use and it would be better if it was compiled directly in our source code, only our new version of that specific code would then have GPL licensing attached to it; there is no way for GPL to travel backwards and somehow change the license on a contributing project from BSD to GPL.

Your specific concern expressed above is covered in Section 5 of GPL v3: "A compilation of a covered work with other separate and independent works, which are not by their nature extensions of the covered work, and which are not combined with it such as to form a larger program, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an “aggregate” if the compilation and its resulting copyright are not used to limit the access or legal rights of the compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit. Inclusion of a covered work in an aggregate does not cause this License to apply to the other parts of the aggregate."

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/openworm/OpenWorm/issues/199#issuecomment-41240974 .

[tarelli]

Good by me (I contributed only a small fix).