[SciPy-dev] Brent's Principal Axis Algorithm

[Pauli Virtanen]

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 06:34:24 +0200, Sturla Molden wrote:

> Robert Kern skrev:
>> That would be great! Unfortunately, there is no license attached to
>> praxis.f, so it cannot be integrated into scipy until we find a
>> suitably licensed implementation of the algorithm.
>>   
> I am not a lawyer, but --- I'd say if someone puts his own code on the
> netlib repository for free download, without even making a copyright
> notice, it can be seen as public domain.

This is not true in practice (nor in theory as Robert notes). The netlib 
repository contains many pieces of code licensed for example under the 
ACM license (academic non-commercial use only, restrictions on 
modification), copyright residing with ACM. Netlib just fails to notify 
people about this.

These source files of course don't contain any mention of copyright, but 
you find about it by looking at the calgo.acm.org list. (Some of them may 
be in public domain, being works of US government employees, but IANAL.) 

-- 
Pauli Virtanen