[Numpy-discussion] MKL and OpenBLAS

[Robert Kern]

On Fri, Feb 7, 2014 at 2:46 PM, Frédéric Bastien <nouiz at nouiz.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 7, 2014 at 4:31 AM, Robert Kern <robert.kern at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Feb 6, 2014 at 9:45 PM, Matthieu Brucher
>> <matthieu.brucher at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> According to the discussions on the ML, they switched from GPL to MPL
>>> to enable the kind of distribution numpy/scipy is looking for. They
>>> had some hesitations between BSD and MPL, but IIRC their official
>>> stand is to allow inclusion inside BSD-licensed code.
>>
>> If they want BSD-licensed projects to incorporate their code, they need to
>> license it under the BSD license (or similar). They are not in a position to
>> "allow" their MPL-licensed code to be included in a BSD-licensed project.
>> That just doesn't mean anything. We never needed their permission. We could
>> be "BSD-licensed except for this one bit which is MPLed", but we don't want
>> to be.
>
> I agree that we shouldn't include Eigen code in NumPy.
>
> But what distributing windows binaries that include Eigen headers?
>
> They wrote this on their web site:
>
> """
> Virtually any software may use Eigen. For example, closed-source
> software may use Eigen without having to disclose its own source code.
> Many proprietary and closed-source software projects are using Eigen
> right now, as well as many BSD-licensed projects.
> """

I don't mind anyone distributing such binaries. I think it might even
be reasonable for the project itself to distribute such binaries
through a page on numpy.org.

I do *not* think it would be wise to do so through our PyPI page or
the download section of Sourceforge. Those bare lists of files provide
insufficient context for us to be able to say "this one particular
build includes MPL-licensed code in addition to the usual BSD-licensed
code".

-- 
Robert Kern