iraf.net

Hello, during a few weeks I've been working on a package of x11iraf for fedora linux. Being accepted, x11iraf would had been distributed with the fedora linux dvds and the the package would have been easily network installable, with a single command.Sadly, this situation won't happen. During the review of the package, the problem of some files licensed with commercial use restrictions arose. You can follow the details in the fedora review requestAs iraf has also is compiled with non free software (NCARGRAPHICS), neither iraf nor x11iraf are free software.Have the iraf development teem considered this issue? Having a completely free software iraf would allow to package and distribute it in the main linux distributions.In any case, I consider this to be an important point, it should appear in the FAQ clearly stated.

I find it ironic, and somewhat annoying, that the commercial side of Fedora is what's causing problems with a copyright that clearly says the software can be redistributed freely except in a commercial product. Various Debian folks have been whining about copyrights for a while as well but nobody has offered to change any code to fix it to their satisfaction and I have a hard time getting worked up about it as an issue. If and/or when this becomes an issue for the project it'll be addressed, but for the moment none of this has prevented anynone from building tarballs, RPMs or Mac DMG files of their own. Replacing the NCAR routines or the HTML widget is certainly possible, but a lot of work to satisfy somebody else's distribution requirements. If you do make any changes to address these issues they can certainly be looked at for inclusion in a future release, otherwise this'll just be added to "the list" of things that need doing.... someday.-Mike

[quote:19e919c906="fitz"]I find it ironic, and somewhat annoying, that the commercial side of Fedora is what's causing problems with a copyright that clearly says the software can be redistributed freely except in a commercial product.[/quote:19e919c906]Well, the problem is not fedora or debian. The problem is that a software that cannot be used for commercial purposes is not free software.
To avoid misunderstandings, this should be clearly stated in the FAQ.
Notice that the license text in the FAQ is a free software license that doesn't represent the license status of Iraf or x11iraf.[quote:19e919c906="fitz"]If you do make any changes to address these issues they can certainly be looked at for inclusion in a future release[/quote:19e919c906]I thinks it's time for iraf to move to a more open development model. I think that there is people around that, without knowing much about the iraf internals, would gladly contribute patches to some obvious problems (think of the IRAF64 project). To maintain the code in sync a version control system is needed also.

I've updated the FAQ to indicate the restrictions.The IRAF64 project is a good example of community development but is one of only a handful of such examples over the last 20 years. I'd love to have the problem of managing too many user-contributed patches, but it hasn't happened in the past and there's only optimism that it'll happen in the near future. -Mike

Fitz, with great appreciation to your contributions to IRAF over the years,
I must differ with you on the significance of IRAF being non-free. *Many* of
us place a great deal of significance on software being free according to the
Free Software Foundation's definition -- and such similar definitions as the
Debian Free Software Guidelines. I no longer recommend software for
astronomical use which does not meet these guidelines, because in the
long run it is unmaintainable. I had (along with a number of others) some ideas of tackling IRAF's
build system a few years ago, and was stopped cold when I learned the
license was non-free. You've put in yeoman effort over the years in support of this platform,
and though the reward now is small (and the economic reward probably
nonexistent), I really believe that right now the single most significant thing
that could be done towards resurrecting IRAF in some long-term maintainable legacy mode would be to fix the licenses.It's worth the effort. In the long run, I think it's the only thing that could
keep IRAF usefully alive. And that means bothering people who have access to the ears of people
at UIUC, NCAR, and the NSF to actually do something. Random university
astronomers like me would have zero chance at this. And the chance for
even NOAO to do this diminishes by the year as the institutional memory
fades and organizations go into "default deny" mode for code which they
may not even remember than have or had.Don Barry,
Spitzer Space Telescope Infrared Spectrograph Team
Cornell University

Hi Don,I appreciate your comments and the time taken to make your point, so please don't take the following as being dismissive of your ideas. The licensing issues with X11IRAF are more complex to fix because of the widgets involved and the functionality they provide so I won't get into that here. For IRAF itself, here's the situation as I understand it: - The IRAF copyright grants anyone the right to modify or redistribute
- The NCAR license is the killer in this context
- There is some concern about the use of YACC source code and the AT&T source license (but I believe this has since been open-sourced and a lawyer is needed to verify this is no longer a problem).The IRAF copyright can easily fix the NCAR problem if you simply remove the offending code and create a forked system with diminished functionality. You can do this as easily as I can and in theory "free IRAF". The free software community however hasn't even taken this minimal step on their own, instead it's become a problem for "packagers" deciding that "upstream" needs to fix the issue. So, I have no reason to believe that developers would come crawling out of the woodwork once IRAF was 'free', and it just isn't credible to think the system would be any more maintainable at that point.Replacing the NCAR functionality isn't hard, but it *is* work: The VELVECT and HAFTON tasks could be dropped without anyone noticing, and CONTOUR could be replaced by some functionality provided by STSDAS code, this leaves SURFACE as the NCAR routine to be rewritten to have an equivalent system. Are you and the many free-software folks willing to take this on?In some sense these comments about 'free iraf' are misdirected: Issues with the IRAF copyright need to be resolved by the NOAO Director, and so long as NOAO asserts control over IRAF (and I still work for them), I'm limited in how much I can do as far as major changes go without NOAO management wondering how it all happened under their noses (even if I don't charge a timecard). IRAF support is clearly abandoned and I can do as I please on this site, core development represents a fine line I need to walk. While I may indeed be the person to affect any changes in the system, email campaigns need to be directed to the front hall if they call for major development. The alternative is that iraf.net truly fork the system code and I end up maintaining two versions (with 9 platforms each!).Finally, licensing issues as the roadblock to long-term viability is just (forgive me) laughable. Knowledgeable developers are needed to write new applications in the current system, or else we need to migrate the system to a new framework that leverages the current code while providing a more modern environment for new app developers. There is little hope for the former (and so maintainability rests with a core group), however there are discussions underway to evolving the system for a next generation that will look nothing like the current system. Director-level and NSF folks don't usually read this site, they do however (at least) notice groundswell movements within the AAS or User's Committees calling for change or support for initiatives. I would love to see a similar groundswell in free software development that produces code I could just incorporate in the next release, if that never gets beyond the email level then there are probably better places to send comments in order to make things happen.Thanks again for your thoughts.Cheers,
-Mike