Holding back on source code

[Sachinthaka Abeywardana]

Hi All,

A few years back when I was a CSIRO (an Australian research centre) intern
I developed a BLAS package for R that uses the GPU. I believe that there is
something similar right now, except it uses a few CuBLAS (Nvidia BLAS)
routines, but doesnt replace them.

My question is, is it technically illegal to hold back on source code?

Thanks,
Sachin

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[Prof Brian Ripley]

On 27/11/2011 23:07, Sachinthaka Abeywardana wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> A few years back when I was a CSIRO (an Australian research centre) intern
> I developed a BLAS package for R that uses the GPU. I believe that there is
> something similar right now, except it uses a few CuBLAS (Nvidia BLAS)
> routines, but doesnt replace them.

We haven't much idea what 'something similar' refers to.

> My question is, is it technically illegal to hold back on source code?

It depends entirely on the licenses involved.  Nothing prevents Adobe
distributing Acrobat without source code, for example.

This is the R development list: questions not specific to R are best
asked elsewhere (and, to take a recent example, that includes questions
about licenses of packages on R-forge or CRAN).  'Elsewhere' may mean an
IP lawyer.

> Thanks,
> Sachin
>
> [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
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> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel


--
Brian D. Ripley,                  [hidden email]
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  [phone] (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     [phone] (PA)
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[Dominick Samperi-3]

On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 2:17 AM, Prof Brian Ripley
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> On 27/11/2011 23:07, Sachinthaka Abeywardana wrote:
>>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> A few years back when I was a CSIRO (an Australian research centre) intern
>> I developed a BLAS package for R that uses the GPU. I believe that there
>> is
>> something similar right now, except it uses a few CuBLAS (Nvidia BLAS)
>> routines, but doesnt replace them.
>
> We haven't much idea what 'something similar' refers to.
>
>> My question is, is it technically illegal to hold back on source code?
>
> It depends entirely on the licenses involved.  Nothing prevents Adobe
> distributing Acrobat without source code, for example.
>
> This is the R development list: questions not specific to R are best asked
> elsewhere (and, to take a recent example, that includes questions about
> licenses of packages on R-forge or CRAN).  'Elsewhere' may mean an IP
> lawyer.

One side-effect of R's GPL-based license is that there are many
Copyright holders
if you include members of the R core, R Foundation, R package
contributors, etc., and
any discussion (with an IP lawyer, say) about possible violation of
license terms would
require input from each of these groups.

Perhaps a new mailing list R-license-policy would be helpful...

Dominick

>> Thanks,
>> Sachin
>>
>>        [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> [hidden email] mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>
>
> --
> Brian D. Ripley,                  [hidden email]
> Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
> University of Oxford,             Tel:  [phone] (self)
> 1 South Parks Road,                     [phone] (PA)
> Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  [phone]
>
> ______________________________________________
> [hidden email] mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>

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[Sachinthaka Abeywardana]

I was referring specifically to gputools package:
http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/gputools/index.html which has some
of Nvidias CuBLAS implemented.

What I want to do is release the code and implement the package, and not
get in trouble considering I was with CSIRO when I did it. I guess from all
this what I gather is if I recode it in a different way I should be able to
release it. From memory there were certainly GPL code elements within it.

Thanks for all the help.
Sachin

On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 6:17 PM, Prof Brian Ripley <[hidden email]>wrote:

> On 27/11/2011 23:07, Sachinthaka Abeywardana wrote:
>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> A few years back when I was a CSIRO (an Australian research centre) intern
>> I developed a BLAS package for R that uses the GPU. I believe that there
>> is
>> something similar right now, except it uses a few CuBLAS (Nvidia BLAS)
>> routines, but doesnt replace them.
>>
>
> We haven't much idea what 'something similar' refers to.
>
>
>  My question is, is it technically illegal to hold back on source code?
>>
>
> It depends entirely on the licenses involved.  Nothing prevents Adobe
> distributing Acrobat without source code, for example.
>
> This is the R development list: questions not specific to R are best asked
> elsewhere (and, to take a recent example, that includes questions about
> licenses of packages on R-forge or CRAN).  'Elsewhere' may mean an IP
> lawyer.
>
>
>  Thanks,
>> Sachin
>>
>>        [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>
>> ______________________________**________________
>> [hidden email] mailing list
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/**listinfo/r-devel<https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel>
>>
>
>
> --
> Brian D. Ripley,                  [hidden email]
> Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~**ripley/<http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/>
> University of Oxford,             Tel:  [phone] (self)
> 1 South Parks Road,                     [phone] (PA)
> Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  [phone]
>

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[Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso]

On 28 November 2011 22:37, Sachinthaka Abeywardana
<[hidden email]> wrote:
> What I want to do is release the code and implement the package, and not
> get in trouble considering I was with CSIRO when I did it.

I am not an internet protocol lawyer, etc...

Did you sign a contract that says the work you did under them is
theirs? If you did, you might get in trouble for releasing the code.
You chould be asking CSIRO, not us. Recoding the work may not be wise,
because perhaps it could breach the terms of your contract too.

Regrettably, the terms of the license you choose (GPL, whatever) are
not relevant, because if you signed a contract, and depending on what
contract says, the choice may fall upon CSIRO, not you.

Also, in general beware of treating the law like an algorithm or a
puzzle ("if (method_a && procedure_b && ! bad_thing) return success;
"). Programmers tend to think algorithmically about the law, but
everything is very fuzzy, vague, open to interpretation and frequently
"unintuitive". Consult a lawyer if possible. The Software Freedom Law
Centre might offer you pro-bono advice on this issue:

    http://www.softwarefreedom.org/about/contact/

HTH,
- Jordi G. H.

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