On Sat, Aug 15, 2015 at 10:02 AM, Nathaniel Smith <njs@pobox.com> wrote:
+1
The arguments against the image are compelling in their own right, but even if they weren't it doesn't matter -- we shouldn't be shipping an image that we don't have any legal right to ship!
On Sat, Aug 15, 2015 at 1:43 AM, Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
The Lena image that we ship is a standard image in the image processing literature, however it's also controversial (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna). That was the reason for: - adding 2 new images in scipy 0.12.0 (https://github.com/scipy/scipy/pull/351) - recommending to not using Lena in the documentation in scipy 0.16.0 (https://github.com/scipy/scipy/pull/4785)
Now it looks like Debian was decided that the licensing of this image is NOK and that it needs to be removed from all of Debian. Which hasn't affected Scipy yet but has affected scikit-image (it's "marked for auto-removal"): https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/scikit-image/q36bajdvWew https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/scikit-image/8d15Egg7qAY
I know opinions on the image itself and on Debian's action will vary, but I'd like to be pragmatic here and prevent issues with Scipy packaging in Debian. Therefore I propose to do the same as what scikit-image will do: remove Lena for the next release and raise an error from the scipy.misc.lena() function.
I agree, I would be glad to see Lena fully retired. If anyone needs the image, it's easy for them to find it, and an error seems like the right outcome from `scipy.misc.lena`. Cheers, Matthew