[AstroPy] message from SOFA chair

[Perry Greenfield]

Yes, as a matter of fact, today we got explicit permission from the Board to relicense SOFA. That will require us to release it under a different name, and using a different prefix for the routine names. You should be hearing about it soon. But they will not be changing their license.

Perry

On Jun 14, 2013, at 12:06 PM, Sergio Pascual wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> is there any progress in this topic? I have checked today and the license text in the SOFA webpage remains the same.
> 
> Sergio
> 
> 
> 2013/5/7 Thomas Robitaille <thomas.robitaille at gmail.com>
> Just for information, we are currently working towards a solution
> off-list with the SOFA board, and will inform the list once things
> have been settled. So no need to propose a license text at this stage.
> 
> Tom
> 
> On 7 May 2013 17:15, Wolfgang Kerzendorf <wkerzendorf at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I think what Mario and Tim are proposing is very good as it would alleviate
> > the problems mentioned by Catherine. To speed up the process, we should
> > propose a license text and they could then see if that meets their criteria
> > (make it as hard as possible for them to delay or refuse).
> >
> > Cheers
> >     Wolfgang
> > On 2013-05-07, at 10:45 AM, Tim Jenness <tim.jenness at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Thanks.
> >
> >
> > On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 3:34 AM, Scott Ransom <sransom at nrao.edu> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> On the subject of the SOFA license conditions, our Board member Patrick
> >> Wallace is continuing discussions he had on this topic last year, which
> >> resulted in changes to the license that enabled the Debian release to
> >> proceed.  Recent emails, which unfortunately were delayed by the spam
> >> filter problems, show that further discussion is needed, and Patrick is
> >> now in touch with Perry Greenfield, STScI Science Software Branch lead.
> >> The nub of the problem is that SOFA software has to address two
> >> conflicting requirements: (i) the insistence by free software groups
> >> that users should not be constrained in any way and (ii) the need to
> >> prevent "counterfeit" versions coming into circulation.  The second
> >> point is vital because SOFA software represents IAU standards and indeed
> >> is cited in other standards such as IERS Conventions.
> >>
> >>
> >
> > Regarding the counterfeit argument, isn't this very similar to encryption
> > libraries where you want to make sure that you are using the official
> > library and not one you found on the internet that happens to have a back
> > door? OpenSSL and other libraries deal with this. People are far more
> > concerned about using the proper OpenSSL than using SOFA but the underlying
> > principal is the same. OpenSSL has a very straightforward licence
> > (http://www.openssl.org/source/license.html) which has clearly been approved
> > for distribution.
> >
> > --
> > Tim Jenness
> > CCAT Software Manager
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> >
> >
> >
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