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Another example of abusive license: "If you need to install your software on a new or different computer, you will need to re-activate the software on that com

Another example of abusive license: "If you need to install your software on a new or different computer, you will need to re-activate the software on that computer using that serial number. [..] This contacts the MacKichan Software licensing server, which we will keep running for at least two years." The hope: "We expect to make Scientific Word an open source product eventually. Since both Scientific WorkPlace and Scientific Notebook contain the proprietary computer algebra system MuPAD, they cannot be made open source. When the open source project for Scientific Word is established, an announcement will be made here."

deleted 5y ago
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nerdponx 5y ago
Would be nice if they open sourced it now that the company doesn't exist anymore. But it seems to never pan out and people just lose access to the thing they paid for.
gopiandcode 5y ago
> Since both Scientific WorkPlace and Scientific Notebook contain the proprietary computer algebra system MuPAD, they cannot be made open source. Don't you just hate the viral nature of infectious *proprietary* code? To co-opt some propaganda used against GPL in the past: Using a proprietary library in your application mandates that significant swaths of your application be released proprietary as well. That's not a problem if you wanted to release proprietary software to start with, but it's a problem for anyone else on either side of the spectrum. For this reason, developers have to be quite careful about how they use proprietary software to make sure that it doesn't impose unwanted licensing restrictions.
- marcodiego 5y ago
  > Don't you just hate the viral nature of infectious proprietary code? Sure, I agree with you. I'm currently looking for a term to replace "infectious" and "viral" since I want to talk about the GPL without bad health connotations. Any suggestion?

deleted 5y ago

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nerdponx 5y ago

Would be nice if they open sourced it now that the company doesn't exist anymore. But it seems to never pan out and people just lose access to the thing they paid for.

gopiandcode 5y ago

> Since both Scientific WorkPlace and Scientific Notebook contain the proprietary computer algebra system MuPAD, they cannot be made open source. Don't you just hate the viral nature of infectious *proprietary* code? To co-opt some propaganda used against GPL in the past: Using a proprietary library in your application mandates that significant swaths of your application be released proprietary as well. That's not a problem if you wanted to release proprietary software to start with, but it's a problem for anyone else on either side of the spectrum. For this reason, developers have to be quite careful about how they use proprietary software to make sure that it doesn't impose unwanted licensing restrictions.

marcodiego 5y ago
> Don't you just hate the viral nature of infectious proprietary code? Sure, I agree with you. I'm currently looking for a term to replace "infectious" and "viral" since I want to talk about the GPL without bad health connotations. Any suggestion?