[Insight-developers] Linear algebra licensing and ITK 3.18 Release

[Tom Vercauteren]

Hi Luis and Bill,

Sorry to come back to it, but I have to admit I am a bit lost on the
linear algebra problem that blocks the 3.18 release.

Is there a bug tracker entry that lists the remaining issues that
needs to be solved before getting 3.18 out? I am not sure to know what
needs to be fixed exactly. Is it only lsqr as implied by your message
here:
  http://www.itk.org/pipermail/insight-users/2010-January/035063.html
or are there other potential problems?

If it's only lsqr, are you sure that we are not allowed to use it? If
I look at the different lsqr packages here,
  http://www.stanford.edu/group/SOL/software/lsqr.html
I would be inclined to think that the lsqr code is licensed under the
CPL which seems to be incompatible with BSD*.
However, lsqr is only one part of the SOL package from Stanford:
  http://www.stanford.edu/group/SOL/software.html

And from this page, it is clearly stated that
  "The software may alternatively be used under the terms of a  BSD License."

Could that solve the 3.18 blocker?

Anyhow, this raises some other related questions. What is the base
plan for 3.18?
1) Find a decent set of patches that answers the licensing issues
or
2) Try and get a suitable replacement for the linear algebra package as a whole

Similarly is there a defined roadmap on this for ITK 4.0?

In the meantime, I have updated the wiki page:
  http://www.itk.org/Wiki/Proposals:Sparse_Linear_Solvers

Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a decent linear algebra
package that covers ITK's needs:
- Support high-level dense matrix algorithms (e.g. Cholesky, LU and QR
factorization, linear solvers, matrix exponential)
- Support high-level sparse matrix algorithm (e.g. least squares
solvers, linear solver)
- BSD-style license
- Maintained code

Despites its headers-only LGPL awkwardnesses (see
http://public.kitware.com/pipermail/insight-users/2010-February/035070.html
), the closest I can see is still Eigen.

Regards,
Tom

* IANAL

On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 23:59, Luis Ibanez <luis.ibanez at kitware.com> wrote:
> Hi John,
>
> The ITK 3.18 release is stuck on finding a replacement
> for the linear solvers that we use from VNL/VXL.
>
> The code that we are currently using for solving linear
> equations is copyrighted by ACM and its license precludes
> commercial use. (therefore it is not compatible with ITK's
> license, and has to be removed).
>
> We have been looking at another linear solvers, but have
> not got to the point where we have a suitable replacement.
>
> You will find a summary of our exploration in the following
> Wiki page:
>
> http://www.itk.org/Wiki/Proposals:Sparse_Linear_Solvers
>
>
> We will appreciate any suggestions,
>
>
>       Thanks,
>
>
>              Luis
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> On Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 3:06 PM, John Drescher <drescherjm at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 10:16 PM, Luis Ibanez <luis.ibanez at kitware.com> wrote:
>>> The agenda for tomorrow's tcon has been posted at:
>>>
>>> http://www.itk.org/Wiki/Agenda%26Status_120309
>>>
>>> It includes a suggested list of items to work on
>>> for the release of ITK 3.18 by January 2010.
>>>
>>
>> BTW, What happened to this release?
>>
>> John
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