Mailman 3 September 2007 - SciPy-Dev

TableIO
by Alan G Isaac Sept. 20, 2007

Sept. 20, 2007

A **long** time ago someone expressed the wish that TableIO could be part of SciPy and was told that it was license incompatible. I looked at TableIO http://php.iupui.edu/~mmiller3/python/ and had the same wish, so I wrote Mike Miller. Well time passes, and he has written back, saying he would be happy to release TableIO under a SciPy compatible license. So: how best to proceed? What I think would be truly great is if he were to maintain TableIO in the SciPy repository, so that SciPy always had the latest version? Is this the right way to thing about this? What is the best response to this opportunity? Cheers, Alan Isaac

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scipy.stats.t.cdf crashes under Win 2000
by Alan G Isaac Sept. 19, 2007

Sept. 19, 2007

Is anyone else seeing Python interpreter crashes using scipy.stats.t.cdf? Thank you, Alan Isaac

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Forwarded message: RE: Algorithm License requested
by Alan Isaac Sept. 17, 2007

Sept. 17, 2007

I no longer remember the person who expressed interest in this, but here we go. http://www.netlib.org/toms/733 Cheers, Alan Isaac ------ Forwarded message ------ From: Deborah Cotton <cotton(a)hq.acm.org> Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2007 12:35:55 -0500 Subject: RE: Algorithm License requested To: aisaac(a)american.edu Prof. Issac, In that case, then because the author consents to [the ACM] releasing the code currently archived at http://www.netlib.org/toms/733 under the BSD license, the ACM hereby releases this code under the BSD license. Regards, Deborah Cotton, Copyright & Permissions ACM Publications 2 Penn Plaza, Suite 701** New York, NY 10121-0701 permissions(a)acm.org 212.869.7440 ext. 652 Fax. 212.869.0481 ** As of Aug. 25, 2006 -----Original Message----- From: aisaac(a)american.edu [mailto:aisaac@american.edu] Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2007 11:31 AM To: Deborah Cotton Subject: Re: Algorithm License requested On Tue, 11 Sep 2007, Deborah Cotton apparently wrote: > I am advised that you have already been in contact with > the author, and that he has consented to your use. In > that case, ACM has no objection, provided the original > source citation is included and the article DOI from the > ACM Digital Library is evident along with the netlib link. > The DOI is http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/192115.192124. Dear Ms. Cotton, Thank you very much for your reply. Unfortunately, in this day and age, it is a bit too indirect to constitute a full answer to my question. I need you to say explicitly the following: If the author consents to the ACM releasing the code currently archived at http://www.netlib.org/toms/733 under the BSD license, the ACM hereby releases this code under the BSD license. Since the author already does agree to this, that will be all I need. This is not reassignment of copyright: ACM continues to hold the copyright. The BSD license is a standard open source license. http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php As you can see from this link, the license includes a specification of the copyright owner: that will still be the ACM. I am trying to get this code into SciPy, an open source project used by myself and my students. http://www.scipy.org/ The BSD license is used for all code in SciPy. I assume you know this, but just to be clear: as copyright holder, the ACM will of course retain the right to issue this code under other licenses in the future, should it wish to. Thank you, Alan Isaac Associate Professor of Economics American University -------- End of message -------

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Re: [SciPy-dev] new tagged release (SciPy 0.6.0)
by Joe Harrington Sept. 16, 2007

Sept. 16, 2007

2 minor grammar fixes in proposed 0.6.0 announcement: SciPy is package of -> SciPy is a package of It is recommend that all user's upgrade. -> It is recommended that all users upgrade. Or better, We recommend that all users upgrade. Actually, that is a very strong recommendation that can have difficult consequences for some. The "everyone upgrade" recommendation should only be given in cases where critical/security bugs are fixed. I'd say instead: Users affected by the issues below should upgrade immediately, and others should upgrade at their convenience. --jh--

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new tagged release (SciPy 0.6.0)
by Jarrod Millman Sept. 16, 2007

Sept. 16, 2007

Hey everyone, I have tagged the SciPy 0.6.0 release. You can get it here: http://svn.scipy.org/svn/scipy/tags/0.6.0 I will be getting packages from the packagers over the next few days. Once I have the binary packages, I will make an official announcement (including updating the websites and sending out emails). The announcement that I have now is: ------------------------------------- I'm pleased to announce the release of SciPy 0.6.0. SciPy is package of tools for science and engineering for Python. It includes modules for statistics, optimization, integration, linear algebra, Fourier transforms, signal and image processing, ODE solvers, and more. This release brings many bugfixes and speed improvements. It is recommend that all user's upgrade. Major changes since 0.5.2.1: * cluster - cleaned up kmeans code and added a kmeans2 function that adds several initialization methods * fftpack - fft speedups for complex data - major overhaul of fft source code for easier maintenance * interpolate - add Lagrange interpolating polynomial - fix interp1d so that it works for higher order splines * io - read and write basic .wav files * linalg - add Cholesky decomposition and solution of banded linear systems with Hermitian or symmetric matrices - add RQ decomposition * ndimage - port to NumPy API - fix byteswapping problem in rotate - better support for 64-bit platforms * optimize - a lot of bugfixes and modernization * signal - add complex Morlet wavelet * sparse - significant performance improvements Thank you to everybody who contributed to the recent release. Enjoy, ------------------------------------- Please let me know if you think I am missing anything important. Thanks, -- Jarrod Millman Computational Infrastructure for Research Labs 10 Giannini Hall, UC Berkeley phone: 510.643.4014 http://cirl.berkeley.edu/

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I am about to tag SciPy 0.6.0
by Jarrod Millman Sept. 15, 2007

Sept. 15, 2007

Hey everyone, Sorry again for not taking care of this sooner. But I am finally ready to create a 0.6.0 tag from the 0.6.x branch. I noticed one final issue with odr on 64bit machines; but it looks like this has been a problem for sometime: http://projects.scipy.org/scipy/scipy/ticket/357 Unless someone tells me that they can fix this in the next few hours, I will go ahead and create the tag. If need be we can release a 0.6.1 bugfix release later. Thanks, -- Jarrod Millman Computational Infrastructure for Research Labs 10 Giannini Hall, UC Berkeley phone: 510.643.4014 http://cirl.berkeley.edu/

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Re: [SciPy-dev] scipy mainpage lacks visits counter and "donate" button
by Joe Harrington Sept. 15, 2007

Sept. 15, 2007

Two thoughts: First, while it's not a good gauge of the size of a project, once can pretty much track growth rate by two means: downloads vs. time, and email messages on the combined mailing lists vs. time. The assumption is that each is subject to an inflation/deflation factor that is roughly constant. The real growth rate might be higher because as a project gets popular a larger fraction of users isn't linked into the host community, but that just lends credence that the reported rates are at least as high as quoted. For example, after numpy 1.0 came out, there was a big jump in the number of messages, which has sustained itself since that time. Second, I've been thinking of donations for a while, actually. I can think of a number of ways to spend small chunks of money to support documentation and packaging, our two areas of greatest need, and others: - support sending outreach ambassadors to conferences - pay technical writing majors as summer students to write some good docs - pay a student for a summer to build native installers for a few popular platforms and get them included in the mainstream of those distros - support the conference - seed an endowment So, I'd propose: Put up a microgrants page and a donate button; rig it to some mechanism (Paypal+bank account?) that collects and stores money. Put up a plot of the pot vs. time so people can watch it grow and see the effect of their donation ("that jump is mine"). The drops would be linked to the results of each microgrant. Put up some initial proposal ideas like those above, and solicit more. Declare that when the pot reaches $11k, we'll make 2 microgrants of $5k each, put $1k toward endowment, and set a goal of raising that sum by April 30 for summer projects. When the pot reaches $10k, start winnowing the proposals down by community vote to 5. Pick 3 community leaders who will choose 2 from among those 5 after a phone interview with each proposer, listening to community input, and a telecon with each other. (I'm open to other mechanisms, but remember that they must deal with Uncle Sam, provide some accountability and fairness, and prevent hijacking of the pot by outsiders). The recipients would do a 1-page web-page report to the community when they were done. Those and the successful proposals would be permanent exhibits on the microgrants page. That would show donors what gets done with their money, and might result in more donations. It would also help to build our community. Maybe some of the tasks would get taken up by volunteers. Others might attract direct funding from someone with leftover money in a research grant that uses SciPy. Rinse, repeat. Grow the endowment by taking $1k for every 2 microgrants from the donated money, plus directed gifts. Once it's large enough to support 2 microgrants a year, it will contribute its interest above inflation to the microgrants pot, and grow only by directed gifts. If we're lucky and get some real money, we can consider supporting programmers as well. The reason not to do that right away is that we need some way to juice our doc and package efforts. On the other hand, I don't object to putting up a directed-programming donation pot, either. While Enthough graciously uses some of its profit to pay its people to work on development, others, like Travis O., are on their own, at least much of the time. We do need to do a couple of things to make this fly. Initially, we'd need a bank account, a few trustees, a basic charter, and some web work. These are not difficult to do. In the longer run, we'd want 501c3 status (which also makes it more likely that someone will remember us in their will, and no I am not kidding, I've seen little community orgs get big bucks this way). The easiest way to do this is to associate with a larger organization that takes smaller groups like ours under their umbrella and feeds directed donations back to us. This approach might require changing our program somewhat to fit their model. Finally, we could also set up to sell "gear" to benefit the program. I will pledge $300 if the idea flies. --jh--

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scipy mainpage lacks visits counter and "donate" button
by dmitrey Sept. 14, 2007

Sept. 14, 2007

hi all, don't you think scipy mainpage lacks visits counter and "donate" button? I tried to implement former in preview mode for some hours, but I have obtained some difficulties (with javascript as well as with html code samples from those free sites like webstat.net, easy-poll.com, sitemeter.com, btw latter works ok in my TRAC page, but only html, not javascript; note that javascript version allows to see where people are come from (I mean from which URLs, their countries may be shown via ordinary html version)). As for the latter, it could be assigned from donate.net page, however, their prices probably may not be considered as cheap, see below (this is from letter, there are lots of words about non-profit organization etc in their site but anywhere you'll see prices in their website, despite the org by itself is commercial). On the other hand, I guess scipy website developers could implement something like that by themselves. Regards, D. here are two programs offered to implement the Donation Selector. 1. One program is designed for organizations just starting out with e-philanthropy, and is more cost effective for processing fewer transactions $200.00 launch fee, then $2.50 technology fee per donation plus 3.3% credit card banking fee. There is a $15.00 chargeback fee should a donor revoke the charge through the credit card company, we will only charge this if they become onerous or exceed 10% of the transactions you make with our system. This program carries no minimum monthly charge, and carries no annual fees. A Direct Funding account, with daily transfer of funds, will require a one time set-up fee of $400.00. 2. Our next program is designed for those organizations with an established e-philanthropy program, who expect a steady flow of transactions throughout the year. $200.00 launch fee, then $29.95 minimum monthly fee to cover the first 20 transactions, hosting and technical support. $1.50 technology fee per donation after the first twenty transactions plus 3.3% credit card banking fee. A $15.00 chargeback fee can also apply, but this program carries no other additional fees. But again, to set up a Direct Funding account for you, with fees. For a Direct Funding account, with daily transfer of funds, as opposed to the standard monthly transfer funds program - we charge a one time set-up fee of $400.00. The selector-template can typically be created on the same business day you sign the contract. We then arrange a support session to train the primary users on the system. Templates can be customized to the look and feel of your site. In general there are 3 levels utilized to customize the look and feel. We will need to bid separately for any specific project, but the following can be used as a guide to our pricing to customize the pages. $400.00 in programming will provide for custom background colors and one static banner either on the top or side of the window. $800.00 in programming will provide for custom colors and live banners on top or along side of the window. $1200.00 will provide enough programming for custom colors, 2 live banners, or implementation of Custom Style Sheets. Email campaigns are set up for a one-time fee of $400.00.Each blast is $50.00 to insert new text, and to blast up to 10,000 email addresses. Additional email address are billed at $1.00/ thousand emails. Network Fundraising Campaigns can be launched for between $2500.00 to have email blasts and a donation selector. Please let me know if you have any questions. I'd be happy to set up a phone meeting to go over your specific needs and plans for your program. Thanks so much. Sincerely, Eric Miller www.donate.net 866-874-0444 x201 404-874-7421 x201

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scikits-related changes to scipy.org website
by dmitrey Sept. 13, 2007

Sept. 13, 2007

Hi all, 1st, for scikits developers: I add mention about openopt module to http://scipy.org/Topical_Software, also, a chapter "SciKits" to http://scipy.org/Cookbook (and a single line about my module there). Wouldn't you add your own ones, if you think they are ready enough for now? Or maybe someone from scipy dev team think it's not a good idea? Then please inform me, I'll remove all inappropriate changes. 2nd: http://scipy.org/SciPy_packages page -> "Optimization" link points to nowhere. don't you mind me to create the page and add some lines here about scipy.optimize (at major) and scikits.openopt (2-3 lines)? Regards, D.

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don't you mind to add openopt and genericopt to webpage "Topical software"?
by dmitrey Sept. 12, 2007

Sept. 12, 2007

hi all, don't you mind to add scikits.openopt and genericopt to Topical software? If you don't, I shall add just no more than ~3-4 lines to the page about scikits.openopt, and I guess the same Matthieu will do. If you think that one or both of the modules are not ready to join the webpage enough for now, please answer the message to prevent changing the page. Regards, D.

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