Funding a free software project is hard. GNU Parallel is no exception. On top of that it seems the less visible a project is, the harder it is to get funding. And the nature of GNU Parallel is that it will never be seen by "the guy with the checkbook", but only by the people doing the actual work.
This problem has been covered by others - though no solution has been found: https://www.slideshare.net/NadiaEghbal/consider-the-maintainer https://www.numfocus.org/blog/why-is-numpy-only-now-getting-funded/ "Is it alright to compromise or even deliberately ignore the happiness of the maintainers so that we can enjoy free and open source software?" (Slide 8 from: https://www.slideshare.net/NadiaEghbal/consider-the-maintainer) Before implementing the citation notice it was discussed with the users: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/parallel/2013-11/msg00006.html There is no doubt that this is not an ideal solution, but no one has so far come up with an ideal solution - neither for funding GNU Parallel nor other free software. If you believe you have the perfect solution, you should try it out, and if it works, you should post it on the email list. Ideas that will cost work and which have not been tested are, however, unlikely to be prioritized. The notice in question: """ Academic tradition requires you to cite works you base your article on. If you use programs that use GNU Parallel to process data for an article in a scientific publication, please cite: @book{tange_ole_2018_1146014, author = {Tange, Ole}, title = {GNU Parallel 2018}, publisher = {Ole Tange}, month = Mar, year = 2018, ISBN = {9781387509881}, doi = {10.5281/zenodo.1146014}, url = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1146014} } (Feel free to use \nocite{tange_ole_2018_1146014}) This helps funding further development; AND IT WON'T COST YOU A CENT. If you pay 10000 EUR you should feel free to use GNU Parallel without citing. More about funding GNU Parallel and the citation notice: https://www.gnu.org/software/parallel/parallel_design.html#Citation-notice If you send a copy of your published article to ta...@gnu.org, it will be mentioned in the release notes of next version of GNU Parallel. """ As you can see the citation notice is carefully worded so that it is not a legal requirement. It was revised in collaboration with RMS to make sure it was compatible with GPLv3. The notice does not deny users the ability to use the software as they wish, for whatever purpose they wish, without payment. It does, however, make it clear what the wishes of the author are. There have been rumours that the citation notice broke scripts, but these rumours have never been backed up by evidence - so an actual MCVE has never been shown. As long as we have not found the perfect way of earning a living from free software, we should try out as many methods as possible. Some will try one method, and others will try another. If we find a way to pay my salary I will be happy to remove the notice. And if we manage to find a general way to fund development of free software, a lot more developers will be happy, and we will be able to put Nadia Eghbal's quote in the past: "Is it alright to compromise or even deliberately ignore the happiness of the maintainers so that we can enjoy free and open source software?" /Ole On Fri, Aug 10, 2018 at 4:52 AM, Rogério Brito <rbr...@ime.usp.br> wrote: > Dear Ole (and others potentially interested in having GNU Parallel in > Debian's and derivatives' repositories), > > I don't know if you have been following the emails on the Debian BTS > regarding GNU Parallel having restrictions regardings its distribution etc. > > Since this issue has surfaced itself once again, but now in a more intense > manner, I believe that, if you have not yet been informed, you may want to > give your opinion (and I will decide how I should follow my maintainership > within the constraints of your software and the contraints of Debian). > > Thanks, > > Rogério Brito... > > On Aug 08 2018, Adam Borowski wrote: >> Actually, it seems to me it's not even distributable. >> >> The wording sounds like a requirement rather than something non-mandatory -- >> reinforced by providing the alternative of paying €10000. Yet the license >> is GPL3+, which expressly forbids additional fees. This is even described >> in FSF's GPL FAQ: >> https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#RequireCitation >> >> Thus, the copyright holder can distribute this software, but no one else >> can. >> >> As the requirement is not a part of the license, we could just remove the >> demand nagware from the code. But alas, the upstream (Ole Tange) threatened >> legal action if you do so without renaming the package. And it doesn't seem >> to be just hot wind, as he registered it: US trademark number 87867112, >> filed Apr 07, 2018. >> >> Multiple people tried persuading the upstream to drop this requirement, >> without success. Thus, diplomacy doesn't appear to be likely to help, >> although letting rms know may work (this package has been blessed as an >> official GNU one, obviously before the requirement was added). >> >> Thus, only options I see are: >> * renaming the package and removing offending code, or >> * complete removal >> >> >> Meow! >> -- >> // If you believe in so-called "intellectual property", please immediately >> // cease using counterfeit alphabets. Instead, contact the nearest temple >> // of Amon, whose priests will provide you with scribal services for all >> // your writing needs, for Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory prices. >> > > -- > Rogério Brito : rbrito@{ime.usp.br,gmail.com} : GPG key 4096R/BCFCAAAA > http://cynic.cc/blog/ : github.com/rbrito : profiles.google.com/rbrito > DebianQA: http://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=rbrito%40ime.usp.br