Re: randlib licence

[David Bateman]

Petr Gajdos wrote:
> Hello,
> I have tryed to remove randlib from octave 2.9.12. Can please someone look at 
> patch attached, if it's ok?
>
> Have a nice day
> Petr
>   

Petr,

Does SUSE require this to distribute Octave?

> Dne středa 13 červen 2007 00:20 jste napsal(a):
>   
>> On 12-Jun-2007, David Bateman wrote:
>> | which makes the whole question moot. If the authors, as owners of the
>> | copyright on the code, place the code in the public domain, I don't see
>> | how an ACM restriction can apply. The only question I see is in the
>> | statement "that we have written". If there is any code in randlib that
>> | was not written by the authors, then it would default to the ACM license
>> | as the only one under which you can distribute.. I don't believe this is
>> | the case, so I think randlib is in the clear for incorporation in GPLed
>> | software..
>>     
Basically as I stated above I believe the code is not constrained by the
ACM license as the code is explicitly placed in the public domain by the
authors. So I believe the code is GPL compatible. However if SUSE
lawyers think otherwise, then that is something else and the patch you
supplied might be a way out.

However, the state/seed means of switching between the generators is
compatible with what matlab does and it would be a shame to loose this
immediately, as it will allow existing Octave code that explicitly sets
the key to continue to have the same behavior. Yes in the long term the
randlib generators should go, but if SUSE can live with randlib in
Octave perhaps it would be better to keep the old generators around till
say the stable release after the 3.0 series (3.2?).

Regards
David



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