[petsc-dev] (no subject)

[Barry Smith]

   Matt,

    You have included a bunch of HSL code in PETSc with uncertain copyright information; it is not clear that we can include it in PETSc.  In hslmc64.c is the following incomplete fragment of copyright/license information:


/* COPYRIGHT (c) 2007 Science and Technology Facilities Council */
/*           and Jacko Koster (Trondheim, Norway) */

/* History: See ChangeLog */

/* ********************************************************************** */
/* CCCC LAST UPDATE Tue Nov 26 03:20:26 MET 2002 */
#undef __FUNCT__
#define __FUNCT__ "HSLmc64AD"
/* *** Copyright (c) 2002  I.S. Duff and J. Koster                   *** */
/* *** Although every effort has been made to ensure robustness and  *** */
/* *** reliability of the subroutines in this MC64 suite, we         *** */
/* *** disclaim any liability arising through the use or misuse of   *** */
/* *** any of the subroutines.                                       *** */




No mention of how it is licensed. A web search discovered http://opensees.berkeley.edu/WebSVN/filedetails.php?repname=OpenSees&path=%2Ftrunk%2FOTHER%2FSuperLU_DIST_2.5%2FSRC%2Fmc64ad.c  which has a very strict outrageous license 




* CCCC COPYRIGHT (c) 1999  Council for the Central Laboratory of the */
/* CCCC Research Councils.    All rights reserved. */
/* CCCC PACKAGE MC64A/AD */
/* CCCC AUTHORS Iain Duff (i.duff at rl.ac.uk) and Jacko Koster (jak at ii.uib.no) */
/* CCCC LAST UPDATE 20/09/99 */
/* CCCC */
/* *** Conditions on external use *** */

/* The user shall acknowledge the contribution of this */
/* package in any publication of material dependent upon the use of */
/* the package. The user shall use reasonable endeavours to notify */
/* the authors of the package of this publication. */

/* The user can modify this code but, at no time */
/* shall the right or title to all or any part of this package pass */
/* to the user. The user shall make available free of charge */
/* to the authors for any purpose all information relating to any */
/* alteration or addition made to this package for the purposes of */
/* extending the capabilities or enhancing the performance of this */
/* package. */

/* The user shall not pass this code directly to a third party without the */
/* express prior consent of the authors.  Users wanting to licence their */
/* own copy of these routines should send email to hsl at aeat.co.uk */

/* None of the comments from the Copyright notice up to and including this */
/* one shall be removed or altered in any way. */


   Do you have any evidence that can be included in hslmc64.c that it is now covered by a more reasonable license than this old one and thus could be included in PETSc source? More license information needs to be included in the file if the source code is to be included in PETSc.  Does PETSc source really need to include this crappy old Fortran code anyways?

   I note that both superlu and trilinos include this code. In superlu_dist they include the full license as listed above but then directly violate the license by distributing the source code with the SuperLU_Dist package.

   Thanks

   Barry