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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, eve

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.

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.