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Non-free licenses that nonetheless make the source code available to licensees have long been used for scientific software. This licensing model alleviates conc
by philipkglass 8y ago
Non-free licenses that nonetheless make the source code available to licensees have long been used for scientific software. This licensing model alleviates concerns about black boxes even if it does not align with the FSF's mission.
Is all Mathematica source available to licensees? Is there any additional cost for a source code license? I understand that most companies (and sometimes even research groups) need/want to maintain ownership of their software. I'm ok with that. But I'm opposed to licensing schemes like that of Gaussian, Inc. where a source code license costs more than an all-platforms site license.
- aflag 8y agoIt alleviates some of the concerns about black boxes, but it doesn't really help with reproducibility, as other people who don't have access to the code will not be able to reproduce the results easily. That is, they won't be able to download the original source and fully understand what's happening.
- philipkglass 8y agoThat's true, and it is a reason that free software with a public VCS history is really the gold standard. I've worked with enough non-commercial but restrictively licensed academic software that I'm willing to forgive commercial vendors for similar transgressions, so long as there is full source available to licensees. Though I admittedly steer clear of restrictively licensed code when at all possible now. I gave up on GAMESS and switched to really open quantum chemistry software because I tired of not having any revision history in the source tarballs, and of having to re-agree to the license every time I wanted an updated version. Also because I want to build software that can be installed in a fully scripted headless manner, and a "fill out the license agreement" step precludes that.