(cc to TJP in case you're interested; context at bottom)
Sorry to duck out of the thread for a day or so -- here are my current
thoughts on PGPLOT bit rot.
The PGPLOT bit rot is actually quite advanced. I wrote the RGB
bitmap patch against the then-current PGPLOT (5.2.2) five years ago;
that is still the current version of the base code. The copyright
notice on 5.2.2 is dated 2001. Since the mass migration to 64 bit
over the past couple of years, PGPLOT no longer compiles on the most
common platforms without major hassles. Many restrictions in the code
are starting to appear dated, and it is impossible to fix the problems
due to licensing issues.
A major reason to deprecate PGPLOT for PDL use is that the license is
not Free. It's licensed for use "...without fee for education,
academic research, and non-commercial purposes" (copyright.notice in
the PGPLOT distribution), which is too restrictive for GPL-
compatibility. Worse, although the copyright notice in the code could
be interpreted as enabling non-commercial redistribution (not enough
freedom for the big Linux distributions, but maybe passable for the
academic community), the web site ("http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~tjp/pgplot/
" explicitly forbids any redistribution ("The source code and
documentation are copyrighted by California Institute of Technology,
and may not be redistributed or placed on public Web servers without
permission."), so one is legally required to bug a nonresponsive TJP
or force users to endure the awful installation procedure.
That's why I was (for a while) distributing the -cd patches as, well,
patches.
I encouraged TJP to GPL the code back in c. 2004, and he seemed
amenable to the idea, but CalTech might not be willing to - I don't
know the answer to that question. He stopped answering my e-mails
shortly after I submitted the RGB patch to him.
Anyhow, I think PGPLOT, useful as it is, should be deprecated from
production software (which PDL is), both because it is too encumbered
and because it is moribund. The main author appears to have moved on
to other things, and the license is restrictive enough to prevent it
being (legally) picked up and dusted off by third parties. (I think
the user base is large and devoted enough that a fixed license would
breathe new life into PGPLOT; that is a matter for TJP and CalTech to
decide).
Cheers,
Craig
On Mar 4, 2009, at 5:44 PM, Chris Marshall wrote:
> David Donovan wrote:
>>
>> Maybe one day somebody will heal PGPLOT's bit-rot and this will
>> become
>> simpler. :)
>
> PGPLOT generates nice plots but it is missing
> a couple of features that would make things
> simpler:
>
> (1) support for RGB bitmap images
>
> (I think there is a patch floating around that
> has color support but it has never made it into
> the mainline distribution---which hasn't changed
> in 8 years)
>
> (2) on-going development and better availability
>
> (Last updated version was v5.2.2 released 2001-02-26)
>
> As a result, I'm working to get plplot viable as a
> replacement for PGPLOT. (I have not yet been able
> to build PLplot out of the box and PDL to use it
> for cygwin).
>
> Assuming I can get the plplot build issues resolved,
> my goal is to write an OpenGL based driver for plplot
> to unify 3D and 2D graphics for PDL.
>
> --Chris
>
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