[SciPy-dev] Brent's Principal Axis Algorithm

[Robert Kern]

On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 23:34, Sturla Molden<sturla at molden.no> wrote:
> Robert Kern skrev:
>> That would be great! Unfortunately, there is no license attached to
>> praxis.f, so it cannot be integrated into scipy until we find a
>> suitably licensed implementation of the algorithm.
>>
> I am not a lawyer, but --- I'd say if someone puts his own code on the
> netlib repository for free download, without even making a copyright
> notice, it can be seen as public domain.

That is entirely contrary to copyright law. Since the Berne Convetion
in 1973, works are copyrighted at the moment of creation. One does not
need to specify that it is copyrighted. In order for you to distribute
it, the author must explicitly give you a license. Silence does not
imply consent.

-- 
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless
enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as
though it had an underlying truth."
  -- Umberto Eco