Great! Once again, welcome on board! Bill.
On 7 April 2010 19:55, Antony Vennard <[email protected]> wrote: > Oh, so *this* is the real announcement! :D > > On a more serious note, my comments from last time still stand - I'm not > sure about the political necessity of some features of the v3 licenses, > but they still protect the essentials of open source (I've reviewed them > more closely since the joke I took too seriously...) and that's fine by > me. One developer not put off contributing by this. > > Antony > > On 04/07/2010 07:25 PM, MPIR Team wrote: >> Dear All, >> >> Despite our recent April Fools prank: >> >> http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel/browse_thread/thread/d2777413749f37e5 >> >> the MPIR developers have actually been considering a switch to an LGPL v3+ >> license for a while, for the following reasons: >> >> 1) Maintaining GMP interface compatibility - a major requirement for >> MPIR users - >> without moving to an LGPL v3 license would involve a significant, >> ongoing and >> wasteful effort in duplicating code that has already been written. This >> would >> seriously undermine more productive investments in code development that >> we hope to make. >> >> 2) It is desirable that MPIR is able to incorporate high quality code from >> developers who are committed to v3 licensing. For example, the first rate >> toom8h code written by Marco Bodrato would not be available for use in >> MPIR without a major and costly rewrite. >> >> 3) There is a danger that staying with a v2 license when others in the >> bignum >> community are moving to LGPL/GPL v3 will merely contribute to community >> fragmentation. >> >> There are of course also disadvantages in that some developers dislike the >> political aspects of v3 licensing and some companies have decided not to use >> any v3 licensed code. But given the limited development effort available to >> us, we believe the ability to easily maintain GMP interface >> compatibility, the >> ability to incorporate high quality LGPL v3 licensed code, the avoidance of >> a wasteful duplication of development effort and additional time to put >> more effort >> into the improvements that we have been contributing, combine to make a >> move >> to an LGPL v3 license seem worthwhile in practice. >> >> Accordingly we have now developed an LGPL v3+ version of MPIR, based on >> selectively >> using code from the GMP project where we consider it to be of high >> quality. We have >> not adopted all GMP speed improvements though as we have it in mind to >> pursue >> different strategies in some areas which should ultimately see much more >> significant >> gains. >> >> Moreover this release includes new code developments of our own. In >> this release we >> have concentrated effort on speed improvements in multiplication and >> division with a >> focus on the creation of a basis for future performance improvements >> in division and >> elsewhere. >> >> We also have speedups in the root code, string input/output and >> gcd/gcdext by >> selective use of code from GMP. There are also dramatic performance >> improvements >> in the Itanium assembly code made possible by mixing code from GMP and a >> little bit >> of new code by Jason Martin. >> >> Our first release candidate is available for testing at: >> >> http://www.mpir.org/mpir-2.0.0-rc1.tar.gz >> >> Documentation is here: >> >> http://www.mpir.org/mpir-2.0.0.pdf >> >> See the files AUTHORS and NEWS for details of all the improvements and >> who they were written by. Our website will be updated with full credits and >> details as usual once testing of the release is complete. >> >> MPIR 2.0.0 is near to 100% compatible with the published interface of >> GMP 5.0.1 >> (some minor exceptions exist, such as the lack of support for secure >> cryptographic functions which we believe are not appropriate for MPIR). >> >> We'd be grateful for any and all feedback on this release. (We also need >> someone >> with an i7 to do some tuning for us - it only takes a few minutes; can >> someone help?). >> >> Before switching license permanently, we decided to consult with numerous >> individuals in the bignum community privately by email. All responses so far >> have been encouraging and positive. We also wish to consult publicly, now >> that we have a first offering available. >> >> So how would this affect your projects? Are there any reasons we should not >> change license permanently? >> >> We think that the benefits of our planned change outweigh the disadvantages. >> What do you think? We are interested to hear your opinion. >> >> Best Wishes, >> >> The MPIR Team >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >> Groups "mpir-devel" group. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> [email protected]. >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/mpir-devel?hl=en. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "mpir-devel" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/mpir-devel?hl=en. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "mpir-devel" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. 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