Re: [ng-spice-devel] Letter to Newton
Paolo Nenzi wrote:
>
> On Tue, 6 Jun 2000, Erik de Castro Lopo wrote:
>
> > I'm sorry, did I miss that? What was the offer?
>
> His last letter (which you can find in the archive at
> http://ieee.ing.uniroma1.it/ngspice/test/) was about our collaboration
> with his group. He plans to put spice sources under GPL:
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 05:34:25 -0700
> From: Richard Newton <rnewton@ic.eecs.berkeley.edu>
> To: 'Paolo Nenzi' <pnenzi@ieee.ing.uniroma1.it>
> Subject: RE: Porting of spice3f5 to open source
>
> Dear Prof. Newton,
>
> Thank you for your interest in our project. We have read the letter you
> sent to the ng-spice-development mailing list and would like to ask you
> something some details.
>
> We would like a clarification on "make the code compliant with 'Open
> Source'. What exactly is required ? Adding a copyright header to each
> file is easy to do. What source modification are you referring to ?
>
> *** Modifications are simply to make the copyright GPL. Just that.
But is the license at the top of each file the only required change?
> As you may have seen on our web site, we are aiming at the development of
> a GPL covered circuit simulator based on spice3, but with new features.
> In your letter it is not clear if you are going to continue the
> development of spice3f5 or simply change its license.
> How would UCB react to a split in the development tree ?
They do realise that the GPL allows a split, don't they? Obviously
a split is rarely a good idea but it sometimes is necessary.
> *** We plan to continue spice3 development.
What are those plans? What do you have in the way of resources and
man power?
> We deserve credit for Spice3 development.
Nobody would disagree here.
> We would oppose a split in the development tree.
Yes, a split is usually a bad thing but the GPL license does not
prevent it.
> We hope you
> would contribute your changes back to the original version (with full
> credit), as was implied in your original note. We would be willing to
> create a new version using your modifications.
By the looks of it, the ng-spice team is VERY ACTIVELY developing
it. Current enhancements are being added by a number of developers
(how many??) via CVS. Does UCB propose setting up an equally
developer friendly system at UCB?
> One note about bsim3(soi) and bsim4: our development team is working on
> the devices interface to the simulator; we are planning make devices
> that behave like plugins. This reduces the memory footprint of the
> simulator (only really needed devices will be loaded into main memory) and
> let people to use even non "Open Source" models in the open source
> simulator, as now happens with thrid party modules for the Linux kernel
> (see NVIDIA drivers fon XFree 4).
>
> *** We had planned to do this also. We just do not have the developer
> bandwidth right now. It is great that you are taking this on!
Well, if they can't match the current developer bandwidth of the ng-spice
team, why are they even bothering. Spice will always be a project that
started at UCB and achieved a very great deal. The credit for that can
never and will never be taken away from UCB.
Was it Eric Raymond who said that one of the most important things in
open source development is knowing when you no longer have a passion for
a project and let someone else take over? It may be UCB's time to let
Spice go.
Just my $0.02,
Erik
--
+-------------------------------------------------+
Erik de Castro Lopo erikd@zip.com.au
+-------------------------------------------------+
"Windows was created to keep stupid people away from UNIX."
-- Tom Christiansen
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