> Hi, > > I am interested in getting slicot [1] into Debian. Slicot is a Fortran > library implementing numerical algorithms for computations in systems > and control theory. It is licensed under the GPL (actually it is > dual-licensed because the library is also incorporated in some nonfree > MATLAB toolbox). > > Parts of the library are already used in the scilab and octave-control > packages. The upcoming release of dynare will also use slicot. At least > 3 packages are therefore going to contain embedded copies of (parts of) > the library, which is not a good thing. > > I therefore volunteer to package it, possibly under the umbrella of the > Debian Science team. > > Note that the slicot website states that the source of the library is no > longer downloadable (they say they are going to reorganize the > licensing…), but there is still a working download link [2]. I intend to > contact them to see if they plan to move away from the GPL in future > releases. In the worst case, if they go nonfree, this means that it > could become unmaintained (at least from our point of view). > > Do you have any comments/ideas before I start hacking? > > Best, > > [1] > http://www.slicot.org > > [2] > http://www.slicot.org/shared/slicot.tar.gz > > > -- > Sébastien Villemot > Researcher in Economics & Debian Maintainer > > http://www.dynare.org/sebastien > > Phone: +33-1-40-77-84-04 - GPG Key: 4096R/381A7594
Hi, I'm the author of the Octave control package and came across this thread coincidentally. I'm a bit worried about the future of my work if Slicot should go nonfree. I propose to join our efforts and create a free fork of Slicot 5.0 if the need should arise. Debian, Octave and Scilab developers already do the same for Arpack [1]. Best regards, Lukas [1] http://forge.scilab.org/index.php/p/arpack-ng/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected] Archive: http://lists.debian.org/[email protected]
