[Insight-developers] ITK 3.0 : FREEZING CVS : Starting Friday Oct 27th : Copyright Issues :

[Luis Ibanez]

Hi Steve,

I'm tracking on the history of the file:

       Insight/Code/Numerics/FEM/dsrc2c.c

This file was originally distributed along with VXL
(up to ITK release 2.8) in the directory:

       Insight/Utilities/vxl/v3p/netlib/dsrc2c.c
       Insight/Utilities/vxl/v3p/netlib/dsrc2c.f

The file was removed from VXL on July 17 2006, as part of the
conversion that Brad did for making vxl thread safe.

When it was realized that the file was needed in ITK, and it
was not available anymore in VXL, the file was added directly
to the ITK repository, at the current location:

       Insight/Code/Numerics/FEM/dsrc2c.c

This was done on July 25 2006.


You are right on the file being copyrigthed by IMSL, INC,
and lacking a description of a license that allows its
distribution.

The original file is at:

     http://www.netlib.org/itpack/dsrc2c.f

and also lacks any license information there...
both the file, and so it goes for the entire
directory.



Googling for IMSL Inc. I got to Visual Numerics:

     http://www.vni.com/products/imsl/


I just send email to Visual Numerics' Technical support,
but it may take a while before they respond.


Plus considering that IMSL is actually a commercial product,
I'm guessing that our best course of action is to remove
this files from ITK and to deprecate the ITK classes that
use it. We will be doing this as part of the release.

It is a bit drastic, from the point of view of backward
compatibiliity, but our BCP policy cannot ignore the
copyright laws.



     Regards,


       Luis



--------------------
Steve Robbins wrote:
> Hello Luis et al.,
> 
> I did not get enough time this weekend to sit down and examine the ITK
> sources thoroughly.  However, I did go through everything in Code/ and
> some issues remain.
> 
> The most distressing is Numerics/FEM/dsrc2c.c; this is copyright by IMSL
> with no license to distribute.
> 
> The files Common/itkOctreeNode.{cxx,h} still have the Iowa MH-CRC copyright
> with no permission grant, and IO/itkAnalyzeDbh.h still has Mayo copyright
> with no permission grant.
> 
> 
> Quoting Luis Ibanez <luis.ibanez at kitware.com>:
> 
>> The pieces of code that had licenses conflicting with ITK
>> have been removed from the CVS repository.
>>
>> A manifesto of the different Copyrights included in ITK
>> was added in the file:
>>
>>          Insight/Copyright/README.txt
>>
>> If you have a chance, please take a look at this file and
>> let us know if you encounter any issues that could prevent
>> ITK from being included in a Debian distribution.
> 
> 
> This file appears to be a work-in-progress.  It is full of notes
> like:
> 
>  2) AnalyzeDB.h:  Vincent is requesting permission to the Mayo
>                   Clinic for transfering the copyright to ITK.
>                   Otherwise, a license statement is needed, to
>                   make clear that ITK can distribute it.
> 
>  4) OctreeNode:   Vincent will transfer copyright to the ISC.
> 
> 
> I presume that this file with be edited once the copyright transfers have
> been effected.  Do you expect this to be done before ITK 3.0 is released?
> 
> The netlib directory has a load of items listed under it with minimal
> or no information.  I'll have a look at them later, but I'm guessing that
> you haven't had time to go through them, either, meaning there are likely
> more issues lurking.
> 
> 
> Regards,
> -Steve
> 
>