On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 10:42 PM, Robert Bradshaw
<[email protected]> wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 8:54 PM, Geoffrey Irving <[email protected]> wrote:
>> On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 6:03 PM, Robert Bradshaw
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 4:28 PM, Geoffrey Irving <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> Hello,
>>>>
>>>> I recently used sage to write a code generation script for exact
>>>> geometric predicates:
>>>>
>>>> https://github.com/otherlab/simplicity
>>>>
>>>> Since it's a python script that imports sage, the simplicity script is
>>>> GPL.
>>>
>>> Not automatically; often Sage is used more as an interpreter than a
>>> library:
>>> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-faq.html#IfInterpreterIsGPL
>>
>> The opposite has been said in previous discussions on this mailing
>> list: like most GPL python libraries, including sage is amount to
>> linking against sage, which means the script doing the including must
>> be GPL. I'm fine with this situation.
>
> The snippet you posted doesn't "link against" Sage anymore than
> Python. I don't hold with the philosophy that all Sage worksheets are
> automatically GPL. What about snippets of Sage code used as examples
> in published works? I'm not a lawyer, but as far as I know not even
> the lawyers have hashed this out.
Here's an example of a thread with people voicing opinions in either
direction (this one in favor of copyleft):
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg23091.html
Unfortunately, in this situation I have to assume the worst,
especially if the lawyers haven't hashed it out.
> As another data point, the GNU Bison project has an exception, but
> links in pure GPL libraries (iconv) that don't make mention of any
> exception. My hypothesis is that this is OK because the part of the
> source included in the output is part of Bison, not iconv.
That's a good point, and would apply to my case as well (all the
copied snippets are bits of C++ code unrelated to Sage). Not sure if
I get it by the lawyers, but definitely worth a try. Thanks!
>>> That being said, a runtime exemption could make a lot of sense, e.g.
>>> if we want to augment our fast_callable classes to spit out chunks of
>>> code in various languages.
>>
>> Okay. For now, it looks like the easiest way may be to port my code to
>> sympy.
>
> That may be a fine thing to do, but it's sad when legal fluff does
> nothing but add busywork...
Agreed! Sage is a wonderful system, and it's a shame to not be able
to use it. On the other hand, copyleft certainly isn't legal fluff,
and people's choices should be respected.
Geoffrey
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