[Insight-developers] Linear algebra licensing and ITK 3.18 Release
Luis Ibanez
luis.ibanez at kitware.com
Mon Mar 15 18:14:15 EDT 2010
Hi Tom,
A) Good point,
We should have filed a bug entry on this issue.
I just did so:
http://public.kitware.com/Bug/view.php?id=10422
and added an email trail of the discussions in the mailing list:
http://public.kitware.com/Bug/view.php?id=10422#bugnotes
B) At this point the main concern is "lsqr".
but, during the weekend we heard (in the Slicer-dev mailing
list) that the lbfgsb optimizer may have similar issues.
C) The immediate things to try are:
1) test vnl_sparse_lu
2) test itpack
These two, are pieces of code that already in the ITK
repository and that could be replacements for "lsqr".
D) My understanding about the "lsqr" problem is that the
Fortran version of this routine(s) was published in ACM:
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=355989
as Algorithm 583:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.86.1305&rep=rep1&type=pdf
and it is listed in the Collection of ACM algorithtms
http://calgo.acm.org/
as
http://calgo.acm.org/583.gz
and that this code is the same as the FORTRAN one in
http://www.netlib.org/linalg/lsqr
that then was put into VXL
http://www.itk.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/Utilities/vxl/v3p/netlib/linalg/lsqr.f?revision=1.2&root=Insight&view=markup
from which the VXL C version was generated:
http://www.itk.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/Utilities/vxl/v3p/netlib/linalg/lsqr.c?root=Insight&view=markup
The software in ACM Algorithms is subject to this license
http://www.acm.org/publications/policies/softwarecrnotice
<quote>
"Noncommercial Use
The ACM grants to you (hereafter, User) a royalty-free, nonexclusive
right to execute, copy, modify and distribute both the binary and
source code solely for academic, research and other similar
noncommercial uses, subject to the following conditions:"
</quote>
The key question at this point is
Who holds the copyright of "lsqr.f" ?
Is it
1) Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. ?
or
2) Michael Saunders (http://www.stanford.edu/~saunders/)
and Chris Page.
I'm sending emails to the three of them,
and I'm anticipating an interesting set of responses....
Once we figure out who is the copyright holder,
we can ask them about licensing....
Thanks for your persistence with this issue...
Luis
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 12:09 PM, Tom Vercauteren
<tom.vercauteren at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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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