[SciPy-dev] arpack wrapper status

[Aric Hagberg]

On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 06:45:46PM -0500, Nathan Bell wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 1:04 PM, Ondrej Certik <ondrej at certik.cz> wrote:
> >>
> >> Did they refuse to re-license ARPACK under something explicitly
> >> compatible?
> >
> > I don't know. One should ask the arpack developers.
> >
> 
> Aric, do you want to take the lead on this one?  If not, I can give it a try.
> 
> I'm not sure what is required from them.  Does an email stating "we
> agree to release ARPACK under the standard, three-clause BSD license"
> suffice?


I read through the threads related to including ARPACK in Debian
and Fedora. The issue appears to be with the clause 

" . Written notification is provided to the developers of  intent to
    use this software.  Also, we ask that use of ARPACK is properly
    cited in any resulting publications or software documentation."

which violates the Debian Free Software Guidelines.

One of the authors (Sorensen) was contacted and willing to (and did)
clarify the intent of the license but apparently didn't get the
Rice Office of Technology Transfer involved to change the clause.

I'll contact him and see if they would consider the standard BSD
license instead of the modified version.

Please do whatever you need regarding ARPACK code in SciPy in order to
get release out on time.

Aric