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If the author wants to extract ten seconds of your time once a year, that's just the price of admission. They're not uptight; they're trying to advance their ca

If the author wants to extract ten seconds of your time once a year, that's just the price of admission. They're not uptight; they're trying to advance their career. (Info: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/parallel/2013-11/msg00006.html https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/parallel/2013-11/msg00006...) This is a very important problem. We devs love to make tools, and we love to do it for free. But you can't eat idealism. Parallel is a nice tool, but it's probably not as impressive as it seems when it comes to landing a job. You're free to decry the author and to point out alternatives. It's practically tradition. But I identify with where the author is coming from. How would you feel if you spent a bunch of time on a tool and the top comment blasts it for reasons unrelated to its merits?

dahart 9y ago
> How would you feel if you spent a bunch of time on a tool and the top comment blasts it for reasons unrelated to its merits? I love parallel, and I spread the word and participate in the PR that Ole is asking for. > If the author wants to extract ten seconds of your time once a year, that's just the price of admission. The ten seconds is not the problem. The problems are: - The citation nag notice is confusing people on their legal responsibilities. It has prevented people from using it due to the fear of liability it causes. (RE: "If you pay 10000 EUR you should feel free to use GNU Parallel without citing." ... "If you use '--will-cite' in scripts you are expected to pay the 10000 EUR, because you are making it harder to see the citation notice.") - The citation demand goes against GNU policy. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#RequireCitation https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#RequireCitation - Ole's citation is not from a scientific or peer-reviewed publication. It simply cannot be used in some contexts. 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 (by the actual GNU license, by a user's employer, and/or by the publication they're submitting to). 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 license 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. Mr. Hess is correct, this is very antithetical to Unix.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  "Tut-tutting" is accurate. Your criticisms are mostly mistaken: He isn't demanding a citation. Let's look at what he's actually doing. The best idea I have come up with so far is printing a citation notice on STDERR if output is to a terminal when GNU Parallel starts. The notice will not be printed if STDERR is redirected (to a pipe or a file), it will also not be printed if --no-notice is given and it can be disabled completely by running --bibtex once: """ When using GNU Parallel to process data for publication please cite: O. Tange (2011): GNU Parallel - The Command-Line Power Tool, ;login: The USENIX Magazine, February 2011:42-47. This helps funding further development. To get rid of this notice run 'parallel --bibtex' once or use '--no-notice'. """ That's just about the most straightforward nag screen I've ever seen. It includes both the rationale and how to disable it permanently. Run --bibtex once! -- > The citation nag notice is confusing people on their legal responsibilities. It has prevented people from using it due to the fear of liability it causes. Whoever decided not to use parallel due to this was being silly. There are no legal concerns. > Ole's citation is not from a scientific or peer-reviewed publication. It simply cannot be used in some contexts. In many contexts, a citation of Parallel is highly inappropriate. He is asking for a citation where possible, to help him out. > 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. But other tools don't do that. You can accept this one case to help this one author. > Mr. Hess is correct, this is very antithetical to Unix. Y'know what's more antithetical to Unix? When the authors can't build tools because it makes no sense to spend their limited time working on projects that further label them as "not a webdev, so why would I hire them?" There are still plenty of jobs for non-webdevs, but millions of new programmers have popped up in recent years. Those non-webdev jobs are getting sparser and more competitive. This argument is full of holes, but the overall point is that Unix as an ideology has been steadily losing ground for the last decade. It's not financially lucrative to be a Unix ideologue. You could argue that that's just the price of adhering to the philosophy. But when a project is actively shunned merely for making a polite citation request, what are onlookers supposed to think? This is just about the least evil type of hustling that the author could do, yet it's still being treated as some kind of offense. How dare he ask you to run --bibtex.
  - deleted 9y ago

dahart 9y ago

> How would you feel if you spent a bunch of time on a tool and the top comment blasts it for reasons unrelated to its merits? I love parallel, and I spread the word and participate in the PR that Ole is asking for. > If the author wants to extract ten seconds of your time once a year, that's just the price of admission. The ten seconds is not the problem. The problems are: - The citation nag notice is confusing people on their legal responsibilities. It has prevented people from using it due to the fear of liability it causes. (RE: "If you pay 10000 EUR you should feel free to use GNU Parallel without citing." ... "If you use '--will-cite' in scripts you are expected to pay the 10000 EUR, because you are making it harder to see the citation notice.") - The citation demand goes against GNU policy. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#RequireCitation https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#RequireCitation - Ole's citation is not from a scientific or peer-reviewed publication. It simply cannot be used in some contexts. 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 (by the actual GNU license, by a user's employer, and/or by the publication they're submitting to). 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 license 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. Mr. Hess is correct, this is very antithetical to Unix.

sillysaurus3 9y ago
"Tut-tutting" is accurate. Your criticisms are mostly mistaken: He isn't demanding a citation. Let's look at what he's actually doing. The best idea I have come up with so far is printing a citation notice on STDERR if output is to a terminal when GNU Parallel starts. The notice will not be printed if STDERR is redirected (to a pipe or a file), it will also not be printed if --no-notice is given and it can be disabled completely by running --bibtex once: """ When using GNU Parallel to process data for publication please cite: O. Tange (2011): GNU Parallel - The Command-Line Power Tool, ;login: The USENIX Magazine, February 2011:42-47. This helps funding further development. To get rid of this notice run 'parallel --bibtex' once or use '--no-notice'. """ That's just about the most straightforward nag screen I've ever seen. It includes both the rationale and how to disable it permanently. Run --bibtex once! -- > The citation nag notice is confusing people on their legal responsibilities. It has prevented people from using it due to the fear of liability it causes. Whoever decided not to use parallel due to this was being silly. There are no legal concerns. > Ole's citation is not from a scientific or peer-reviewed publication. It simply cannot be used in some contexts. In many contexts, a citation of Parallel is highly inappropriate. He is asking for a citation where possible, to help him out. > 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. But other tools don't do that. You can accept this one case to help this one author. > Mr. Hess is correct, this is very antithetical to Unix. Y'know what's more antithetical to Unix? When the authors can't build tools because it makes no sense to spend their limited time working on projects that further label them as "not a webdev, so why would I hire them?" There are still plenty of jobs for non-webdevs, but millions of new programmers have popped up in recent years. Those non-webdev jobs are getting sparser and more competitive. This argument is full of holes, but the overall point is that Unix as an ideology has been steadily losing ground for the last decade. It's not financially lucrative to be a Unix ideologue. You could argue that that's just the price of adhering to the philosophy. But when a project is actively shunned merely for making a polite citation request, what are onlookers supposed to think? This is just about the least evil type of hustling that the author could do, yet it's still being treated as some kind of offense. How dare he ask you to run --bibtex.
- deleted 9y ago