Re: Please use a free license for blimps and sift
Dear Pauline,
I stumbled upon this old mail and want to catch up with the issue.
As far as I can see SIFT is now at version 6.2.1 and the license
is now relaxed enabling also commercial use. However, it is not
clear to me that the code copy of blimps which is included in the
tarball is covered by the same license. All its code contains:
/* (C) Copyright 1993-9, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center */
/* Use, modification or distribution of these programs is subject to */
/* the terms of the non-commercial licensing agreement in license.h. */
Could you please clarify also the blimps code license?
Thanks a lot
Andreas.
On Fri, Jan 15, 2016 at 08:27:10AM +0100, Andreas Tille wrote:
> Dear Pauline,
>
> On Fri, Jan 15, 2016 at 10:50:04AM +0800, Pauline Ng wrote:
> > I've asked Steve Henikoff to check with FHCRC's Technology Transfer office
> > to see if we can change the license to GNU-GPL. (The latest version of SIFT
> > (SIFT 4 Genomes is a hybrid license of GNU-GPL and FHCRC), so this will
> > simplify things later. Please email me in 2 weeks time if you haven't heard
> > from me.
>
> Thanks for the promising response and the coordination work you probably
> need to undergo for such a change.
>
> > Also, because I wrote the SIFT algorithm, I'd like to benchmark and check
> > the code that debian-med packages. I think there are several version of
> > SIFT out there. What is the latest release version that you'd like to use?
>
> Usually we are packaging the latest upstream release. If you have good
> reasons for recommending a different release we would trust your insight
> what might be the best release for Debian. Please do not consider us as
> the experts to decide about *your* code. ;-) We simply try to distribute
> your prefered choice to your users in a most convenient form.
>
> > Thanks,
> > Pauline
>
> Thanks to you
>
> Andreas.
>
> > On Wed, Jan 13, 2016 at 3:25 PM, Andreas Tille <andreas@an3as.eu> wrote:
> >
> > > Dear Pauline,
> > >
> > > On Wed, Jan 13, 2016 at 09:59:14AM +0800, Pauline Ng wrote:
> > > > The Henikoffs and I received your email about regarding changing the
> > > > license of blimps and SIFT to GPL. We are willing to consider it if SIFT
> > > > can be easily distributed. Do you have a working version of SIFT on
> > > > debian?
> > >
> > > Currently version 4.0.3b is packaged and I know that this is not the
> > > latest released version. One reason for this lag behind is the fact
> > > that SIFT remains in non-free which does not receive the apropriate care
> > > - thus the motivation for my mail to tackle the latest version if there
> > > would be a free license.
> > >
> > > > My old version of SIFT uses a very old version of blast and calls a
> > > binary
> > > > of blimps --I think the source code has been since lost.
> > >
> > > The Debian version of SIFT is linked against a separately packaged
> > > version of blimps 3.9. I noticed that the downloadable tarball
> > > sift5.2.2.tar.gz contains a dir blimps/blimps with C sources (and even
> > > *.o files which should not be distributed inside a tarball). I also see
> > > a dir blimps/bin which we would clean up from the tarball since we
> > > usually do not ship precompiled binaries in the source tarball.
> > >
> > > > If you can can confirm that SIFT works in debian, then Dr. Henikoff will
> > > > talk to the FHCRC tech transfer office to start the process.
> > >
> > > I can confirm that the Debian Med team got the old version of SIFT
> > > working and we will try or best to get also the latest version working.
> > > However, please make sure that the license change is not only for the
> > > purpose of distribution inside Debian but rather in general since a
> > > specific free Debian license is also considered as non-free by the
> > > Debian Free Software Guidelines.
> > >
> > > > Thanks,
> > > > Pauline
> > >
> > > Thanks a lot for your fast response
> > >
> > > Andreas.
> > >
> > > > Hello,
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > I'm writing you on behalf of the Debian Med team which is a group inside
> > > > Debian with the objective to make Debian the best distribution for
> > > biology
> > > > and medical care. We try to package free software that is relevant in
> > > > these fields for main Debian.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > You might know that there are packages of blimps and sift for some time
> > > > which are not part of the official Debian distribution due to its license
> > > > which is considered non-free since it violates the Debian Free Software
> > > > Guidelines[1]. We would really make blimps and sift part of the official
> > > > Debian distribution which has several advantages for users as well even
> > > for
> > > > you as developers since the wider spreading of your code might lead to
> > > > enhancements that will be send to you.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > We would like you to reconsider the restriction under the following
> > > >
> > > > considerations:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > - Did you earned a mentionable amount of money by selling mssstest
> > > >
> > > > yourself?
> > > >
> > > > - Do you consider that anybody else would earn a mentionable amount
> > > >
> > > > of money by selling a freely licensed program?
> > > >
> > > > - Would you agree that it is in the interest of mssstest code and
> > > >
> > > > the users to have a free distribution inside Debian?
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Please keep in mind that the restriction implies that the programs cannot
> > > > be included as part of a distribution that is sold (even if it's just to
> > > > compensate for the cost of the storage media). Your intention is almost
> > > > certainly to prevent people to sell the program standalone.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > To our experience authors who used this kind of license (for instance Joe
> > > > Felsenstein as author of PHYLIP) did not considered this as a success.
> > > May
> > > > be you reconsider the license to choose some free license like GPL; BSD
> > > or
> > > > MPL - feel free to discuss this here on our mailing list.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > It would be great if you would simply drop the restriction and enable us
> > > to
> > > > integrate blimps and sift into Debian properly.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Kind regards
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Andreas.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > [1] https://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > http://fam-tille.de
> > >
> > > --
> > > http://fam-tille.de
> > >
>
> --
> http://fam-tille.de
>
>
--
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