Re: persistent reproducibility ?

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi!

zimoun <address@hidden> skribis:

>>> One of the issues is that the Guix packages tree will never include
>>> some softwares, even if they are open source. Because the authors
>>> apply weird licences or non-GNU compliant licences, or simply because
>>> authors are not so motivated to push. Even if I totally agree with the
>>> paragraph about Proprietary Softwares in your cited paper, it is just
>>> a fact from my humble opinion.
>>
>> If you mean “open source” in the sense of “using a license that is
>> certified by the Open Source Initiative” then that software is probably
>> Free Software.  There is no such thing as GNU compliance in licenses.
>
> I mean "open source" any software publicly released with publicly
> accessible source. It is large. ;-)

“Open source” as defined by the OSI means more that just “accessible
source”:

  https://opensource.org/definition

In effect it requires the 4 freedoms:

  https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

Now, it is true that there’s software out there with “accessible source”
that is neither free software nor open source, especially on github.com
since GitHub makes it easy to publish code without specifying a license.

> My point is that a lot of softwares released in scientific world will
> never reach such condition. It is sad and I think all people here are
> trying to change by convincing the authors. But, it is a pragmatic
> fact.

I’m not sure.  Of course we’d have to be more specific than “a lot of”
;-), but I also see “a lot of” scientific software that is free; in
fact, I haven’t seen much non-free scientific software produced in the
CS research institutes here in France.

>> We do however follow the GNU FDSG (Free System Distribution Guidelines),
>> which may result in some software to be excluded or modified in rare
>> cases.  (One example is “Shogun”, which we modify to remove included
>> non-free software.)
>
> Yes, the GNU FDSG defines "free" (as in speech). And there is "open
> source" softwares which are not included in this definition (for the
> good, for the bad, I am not arguing).
> https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#NonFreeSoftwareLicenses
> For example, some versions of Scilab (clone of Matlab) with a "weird"
> license (CeCILL-2).

The CeCILL licenses are all free software licenses, so CeCILL-licensed
software is welcome in Guix!

Thanks,
Ludo’.