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Sure GPL divide the restriction, but effectively the code is under two contradictory licences (GPL v3, and cite or pay). Why are you sure the GPL v3 is the one

Sure GPL divide the restriction, but effectively the code is under two contradictory licences (GPL v3, and cite or pay). Why are you sure the GPL v3 is the one that "wins"?

temac 10y ago
Why do you think there are 2 licenses? Where did you see any "cite or pay" license?
dahart 10y ago
IANAL, but personally I'm certain myself that GPLv3 is the one and only license. The cite or pay is just a nag request, not a license. Also note it doesn't say the only options are either cite or pay exclusively, it says (obnoxiously) if you pay 10,000 EUR, feel free to not cite. If you don't pay, then you are only obligated by this request to feel guilty. Again, Ole really just wants PR here, he made that clear in the email thread. He's only asking for help, in a forceful way. If you have a reason to give him some help, and you make heavy use of parallel, it would make his day and it wouldn't hurt you. Otherwise, there is not legal requirement nor academic tradition to cite usage of parallel in academic papers, unless the papers build directly on gnu parallel. I really wouldn't be surprised if part of this is Ole felt like there were research papers about parallelism that built on gnu parallel's efforts directly and should have cited him, that he's been short changed by a few academics. But simply speeding up your data processing for doing something in a field that is not related to parallel processing at all, then parallel is simply another random tool in a huge bucket of tools to get your job done, and it has no place in an academic citation.
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  Completely agree with your last paragraph. Case in point: it's not common to cite the BLAS paper [1] either when you're just using BLAS for data processing, even though BLAS is arguably more "scientific" than GNU Parallel. [1] http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=355841.355847 http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=355841.355847
  - RhysU 10y ago
    I cited Ole in a paper. Took much less time than parsing through this thread. Ole wins. Ole keeps working on parallel. I win. The community should do everything it can to encourage the creators and custodians of scientific software to continue, as we all benefit from the ecosystem.
    - dahart 10y ago
      Awesome! And I totally agree about encouraging anyone writing good software, including Ole. FWIW, keep in mind a few things: - Note that @CJefferson is afraid to use parallel because Ole made the license restrictions unclear by adding the citation request. Ole is discouraging some applications of his software by being so forceful about his request. - Ole's citation is not from a scientific or peer-reviewed publication. It simply cannot be used in some contexts. Even the BLAS link above was in a research journal, but Parallel's is not. In many contexts, a citation of Parallel is highly inappropriate. - The small amount of time it takes to either cite Ole or read and understand this thread is largely irrelevant to the question of whether a citation is either warranted or appropriate or allowed. Understanding the license is a one-time event, and it's very important for the license to be legally clear. Parallel's citation notice is causing confusion. The question is whether Parallel can and should be used without having to worry (forever) about the legal consequences of the contract I've agreed to by using the software. - This approach isn't scalable. If other GNU tools, or other free software started using the same language as Ole, it would cause widespread problems.

Sure GPL divide the restriction, but effectively the code is under two contradictory licences (GPL v3, and cite or pay). Why are you sure the GPL v3 is the one that "wins"?

temac 10y ago

Why do you think there are 2 licenses? Where did you see any "cite or pay" license?

dahart 10y ago

IANAL, but personally I'm certain myself that GPLv3 is the one and only license. The cite or pay is just a nag request, not a license. Also note it doesn't say the only options are either cite or pay exclusively, it says (obnoxiously) if you pay 10,000 EUR, feel free to not cite. If you don't pay, then you are only obligated by this request to feel guilty. Again, Ole really just wants PR here, he made that clear in the email thread. He's only asking for help, in a forceful way. If you have a reason to give him some help, and you make heavy use of parallel, it would make his day and it wouldn't hurt you. Otherwise, there is not legal requirement nor academic tradition to cite usage of parallel in academic papers, unless the papers build directly on gnu parallel. I really wouldn't be surprised if part of this is Ole felt like there were research papers about parallelism that built on gnu parallel's efforts directly and should have cited him, that he's been short changed by a few academics. But simply speeding up your data processing for doing something in a field that is not related to parallel processing at all, then parallel is simply another random tool in a huge bucket of tools to get your job done, and it has no place in an academic citation.

semi-extrinsic 10y ago
Completely agree with your last paragraph. Case in point: it's not common to cite the BLAS paper [1] either when you're just using BLAS for data processing, even though BLAS is arguably more "scientific" than GNU Parallel. [1] http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=355841.355847 http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=355841.355847
- RhysU 10y ago
  I cited Ole in a paper. Took much less time than parsing through this thread. Ole wins. Ole keeps working on parallel. I win. The community should do everything it can to encourage the creators and custodians of scientific software to continue, as we all benefit from the ecosystem.
  - dahart 10y ago
    Awesome! And I totally agree about encouraging anyone writing good software, including Ole. FWIW, keep in mind a few things: - Note that @CJefferson is afraid to use parallel because Ole made the license restrictions unclear by adding the citation request. Ole is discouraging some applications of his software by being so forceful about his request. - Ole's citation is not from a scientific or peer-reviewed publication. It simply cannot be used in some contexts. Even the BLAS link above was in a research journal, but Parallel's is not. In many contexts, a citation of Parallel is highly inappropriate. - The small amount of time it takes to either cite Ole or read and understand this thread is largely irrelevant to the question of whether a citation is either warranted or appropriate or allowed. Understanding the license is a one-time event, and it's very important for the license to be legally clear. Parallel's citation notice is causing confusion. The question is whether Parallel can and should be used without having to worry (forever) about the legal consequences of the contract I've agreed to by using the software. - This approach isn't scalable. If other GNU tools, or other free software started using the same language as Ole, it would cause widespread problems.