[SciPy-User] fit with 3 parameters ok, fit with 4 is going wrong!

[Matt Newville]

On Feb 6, 2014 5:14 PM, "Robert Kern" <robert.kern at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Feb 6, 2014 at 9:20 PM, Matt Newville
> <newville at cars.uchicago.edu> wrote:
> > Hi David,
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Feb 6, 2014 at 2:20 PM, Daπid <davidmenhur at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> On 6 February 2014 18:55, Matt Newville <newville at cars.uchicago.edu>
> >> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> I'm interested, but slightly confused.   Iminuit / probfit is
described
> >>> as BSD, but depends on (and includes?) Minuit - isn't that GPL?
> >>
> >>
> >> The license says iminuit is MIT, but Minuit is GPLv2. So, the Python
part,
> >> that wraps the C code is MIT.
> >
> > The way I understand it, code that wraps GPLv2 code is required to use
GPL,
> > and so propagate the license to all code using it. That would mean that
code
> > that uses Minuit cannot be something other than GPL.   Perhaps I am not
> > understanding something.
>
> GPLed code can be combined with code under a different license as long
> as that other license imposes no conditions more restrictive than
> those in the GPL. The MIT license is one such license. This is all
> perfectly above board.

Unless I am mistaken (not without precedent), the resulting mixed code must
use the GPL. If library "M" is GPL and package "Mwrapper" calls it,
"Mwrapper" must be GPL.   This license propagation is the distinguishing
characteristic of GPL, and what differentiates it from LGPL and BSD/MIT.
Do you disagree?

> That said, as a practical matter, for a package that mostly just wraps
> the functionality of the internal GPLed component, licensing that
> wrapper under the MIT license leads to confusion, as we have seen.

I think this does not lead to confusion, but to a license violation.  The
GPL is wordy, but not confusing.  If your code wraps (uses, links to,
imports, or calls) GPL code, your code must use the GPL.  Not MIT.
Then again, maybe something has changed and Minuit is not actually GPL
anymore.  My recollection is that Minuit and Root have been GPL forever.
I've just ignored these tools, but I now see that parts of Root are now
LGPL (not the core math routines, including the minimization code, which is
based on GSL, and so GPL).   Perhaps Minuit was abandoned by the CERN folks
and the license was changed?   I downloaded the Minuit package from
http://www.cern.ch/mathlibs/sw/5_34_14/Minuit2/Minuit2-5.34.14.tar.gz  but
see no mention of any license anywhere in the source or documentation there
-- perhaps I missed it.  Is Minuit being developed separately now?

--Matt
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