[SciPy-dev] requesting feedback on/editing of scikits wiki-page

[Robert Kern]

Jarrod Millman wrote:

> Originally, I assumed that *all* the scikit code would be released
> under the same license (ie.,  the revised BSD license like all the
> rest of scipy).  That would certainly be my preference.  My
> understanding was that the basic idea behind scikits was simply to
> provide a modular mechanism for distributing "scipy" packages under
> one namespace.

This is not the case. An explicit goal was for each package to have its own
license such that we can provide project infrastructure for projects that have
more restrictive licenses than scipy. It is *not* the intention to move
scipy.linalg, etc. over to scikits. Nothing currently in scipy (except maybe
some of the currently sandboxed projects) will move over to scikits.

> There are several arguments for using the same license for all the
> packages.  First, I think that it would confusing for users importing
> "from scikits import foo, bar" to find that foo is released under one
> license and bar is released under another.  Second while we want to
> keep dependencies between scikits packages to a minimum, there will
> inevitably be a need for code from one package to be used in another.
> This may lead to code duplication if the needed functionality already
> exists in a scikit's package, but is released under the GPL when BSD
> code is needed.  Third, it is reasonable to imagine that at some
> point, someone will want to refactor the various scikit's packages.
> During a major refactoring, it may be desirable to move code from one
> package to another or even from scikits to scipy.  This will be
> difficult if it is necessary to keep track of what license each piece
> of code is released under.

I don't think that will be difficult at all. You just have to stop thinking of
"scikits" as a project. It's not. It's just a namespace for other projects.

> Basically, I think that opening up the possibility for each package to
> be released under its own license is going to make it difficult to
> maintain some unity to the scipy namespace.  I also don't know whether
> there is a need to include non-BSD code in the scikit's namespace.  We
> could easily create links to non-BSD code on the wikipages or even
> create a new namespace for code released under different licenses.  I
> would be very interested to hear arguments for why non-BSD code needs
> to be available under the scikit's namespace.

There is a need. It was, in fact, the *largest* motivation for starting scikits.

-- 
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