SciD (Was: Real Close to the Machine: Floating Point in D )

[Georg Wrede]

Bill Baxter wrote:
> On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 12:22 PM, Georg Wrede <georg.wrede at iki.fi> wrote:
>> Lars T. Kyllingstad wrote:
>>> 2. I have to figure out some licensing issues. Some algorithms are clearly
>>> public domain, while some things -- like code I've ripped off Numerical
>>> Recipes, for instance -- is more questionable. (Although the NR guys do
>>> quite a lot of off-ripping themselves. ;)
>>
>> If you're talking about any one of the books that come up when entering
>> "Numerical Recipes" in the Amazon search box, I'd say that those recipes are
>> freely usable. That's why they're in the books.
>>
>> Checking, of course may be good, but if anyone publishes recipes in a book
>> and then sues people for actually using them, I'd sue *them* for entrapment.
> 
> Well you'd better call your lawyer then. :-)
> 
> The usage terms on the classic Numerical Recipes are terrible.
> Basically you're only allowed to use their code if you purchased a
> copy of the book.  Which basically means if you use their code, then
> you are not allowed to share the NR portion of your code with anyone
> who does not own the book.

Damn. It's a shame that I currently don't have a company of, say, 20 
coders. Then I'd have enough slack in my turnover to take on issues like 
this. Here in Europe, some of those things aren't all too favorably 
looked upon. Just last week I read that Intel had got a fine of millions 
of dollars, just because they had twisted the arm of some wholeseller so 
that they entirely excluded AMD.

> Their code is not so pretty anyway, so much better to just read the
> ideas and implement it yourself, thus avoiding any potential legal
> hassle.

Yes, if the algorithm is published in a book, then it's a lot easier for 
us to implement it, instead of "translating" /their/ C[++] implementation.

> SciPy has recently done a sweep through their code purging anything
> that looks like it was derived from NR code for this reason.  They
> also went through and made it clear in all comments which refer to NR
> for explanations of algorithms that they did NOT use NR code as a
> basis for the code in SciPy.

The *first* half of this century belongs to the RIAA, and their friends. 
And similarily, like the Soviet Union thought socialism /everywhere/ is 
the answer, seems like some other countries think free market 
/everywhere/, unhindered, is the answer. For example, TV was originally 
thought of as a superior medium to educate the masses, to bring equality 
to citizens by enabling everyone access to the same education. Today, 
one watches Oprah, Dr Phil, etc. and sees 3 minutes of programming, 6 
minutes of commercials, and the same all over again. Watching those 
shows overseas, makes one cry of compassion. Here we see the shows at 
least a half hour at a time, interspersed (sometimes) with brief 
flashes, saying "put commercial here". And we have jingles between 
programming and commercials.

During the *second* half of this century, most countries and continents 
have adopted a more pragmatical way. (Just as in programming languages, 
full OOP sucks, full Purely Functional sucks, etc.) The entities will 
have adopted a pragmatic mix of state controlled, free market, branch 
cooperated, and third sector, economic systems. For example, deciding 
what should be showed to kids before 9am, is not a choice left to "who 
makes programming that the average 2-second channel hopper sticks to", 
or who is audacious enough to have 95% of an hour commercials and only 
5% programming "because the audience seems to cope". That decision has 
to be with the FCC, or some other authority, not guided by quartal revenue.

Just yesterday I watched a documentary from China. Seems like the 
Central Government (or whatever they're called) have adopted a way of 
thinking about economical issues, that kind-of strides the socialist and 
the market economy. Most things are according to market economy, but 
some things are tightly controlled. (Yes, I know, they censor the 
Internet heavily, but the commentators and the interviewees (some of 
which were economics students at regular Chinese, Shanhai, or Hong Kong 
universities) seemed to think that some censorship is a small price to 
pay for economic stability, long-term predictability, and reason in 
administration. Which they (according to them) couldn't have with a 
revolution or a shift of power.)

We don't need to copy NR. All we need is to glipse at their algorithms. 
And anyway, D is so much more powerful that those algorithms would be, 
implemented in another way, anyhow.