[Savannah-register-public] [task #14528] Submission of relax

[Edward d'Auvergne]

Follow-up Comment #18, task #14528 (project administration):

>> The files already contain notices, but these are actually placed as
comments
>> after every single function, e.g.: 
>>
https://sourceforge.net/p/nmr-relax/code/ci/master/tree/extern/sobol/sobol_lib.py
>
>
> There are no copyright notices after functions, there are information
> about the authors; the license notice is too ambiguous: it doesn't
> mention the allowed versions of the LGPL.

I have now noticed that this has changed over time.  When I originally bundled
the Sobol Python package, the text after each function was for example:

#       Licensing:
#
#               This code is distributed under the GNU LGPL license.
#
#       Modified:
#
#               22 February 2011
#
#       Author:
#
#               Original MATLAB version by John Burkardt.
#               PYTHON version by Corrado Chisari


I see now that the licence has changed:

#  Licensing:
#
#    This code is distributed under the MIT license.
#
#  Modified:
#
#    22 February 2011
#
#  Author:
#
#    Original MATLAB version by John Burkardt.
#    PYTHON version by Corrado Chisari

The original MATLAB code from John Burkardt is still LGPL licensed.  From
memory, there was also previously text on the source webpage
<http://people.sc.fsu.edu/~jburkardt/py_src/sobol/sobol.html> or a linked page
that the GNU LGPL licence was the current version.  For 2011 that would be
version 3.  However I cannot find that text any more, either on the webpage or
on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.



>> I have nevertheless added FSF recommended notices to the top of all of the
>> files
>
>
> Is that copyright notice valid? It only list one copyright holder, though
> there are much more authors. Did they assign their copyright to one
> person?

It looks like Corrado Chisari wrote the LGPL Python code.  The original MATLAB
version by J. Burkardt was LGPL licensed.  Looking at the code side-by-side:

http://people.sc.fsu.edu/~jburkardt/m_src/sobol/
http://people.sc.fsu.edu/~jburkardt/py_src/sobol/

There should clearly be the copyright notice dates from the .m files in the
.py files.  Looking at all of the code on the webpages there, the history of
the code appears to be:

FORTRAN77 version by Bennett Fox
FORTRAN90 version by John Burkardt
MATLAB version by John Burkardt
Python version by Corrado Chisari

None of the original FORTRAN77 code referenced in some functions appears in
the FORTRAN90 code.  So the history looks is FORTRAN90 -> MATLAB -> Python.  I
have never encountered a mention of copyright transfers, so I would assume
that both John Burkardt and Corrado Chisari have copyright ownership.  Though
Chisari's MATLAB -> Python language translation would not have produced much
new copyrightable material.


>> (excluding the auto-generated output files which remain in the README
file).
>
>
>Those are text files. They should themselves contain the notices.

I have updated the Sobol package in relax to the newest MIT licensed version,
changed the licence from LGPLv3 to MIT, and tracked down all of the dates
throughout the FORTRAN90 -> MATLAB -> Python chain to create the copyright
notices.  See:

https://sourceforge.net/p/nmr-relax/code/ci/master/tree/extern/sobol/
https://sourceforge.net/p/nmr-relax/code/ci/master/tree/extern/sobol/sobol_lib.py

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