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Numworks: open-source, Python-compatible handheld graphing calculator

numworks.com

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Re: Numworks: open-source, Python-compatible handheld graphing calculator

#11

Post by kfogel »

dbcurtis wrote: post #8
kfogel wrote: post #4

It's not open source; the Hacker News headline is wrong. The Numworks web site does not claim it's open source, by the way -- the problem is only in the headline here. The license is Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial ShareAlike (CC-BY-NC-SA), and the presence of the "NonCommercial" clause makes it unambiguously non-open-source. If that clause were not present, CC-BY-SA would still be an odd license to use fo…

Please explain. NC only prohibits commercial exploitation, correct?

That's right. And prohibiting commercial exploitation violates one of the key clauses of both the Open Source Definition and the Free Software Definition (the part about freedom of use for any purpose). See https://opensource.org/faq#commercial. In other words "open source" doesn't just mean "you can see the source code" (that's known as "visible source" or "source available" software). Rather, "open source" means "meets the Open Source Definition", which is at https://opensource.org/definition.

Re: Numworks: open-source, Python-compatible handheld graphing calculator

#12

Post by kfogel »

marmaduke wrote: post #7
kfogel wrote: post #4

It's not open source; the Hacker News headline is wrong. The Numworks web site does not claim it's open source, by the way -- the problem is only in the headline here. The license is Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial ShareAlike (CC-BY-NC-SA), and the presence of the "NonCommercial" clause makes it unambiguously non-open-source. If that clause were not present, CC-BY-SA would still be an odd license to use fo…

Source appear to be on GitHub. Non commercial is not incompatible with open source. It makes sense to me that to get the investment required to fund this, you’d want sole rights to commercialize. Nothing prevents someone else from building a cheaper DIY version as long as they don’t sell it. For example it could be a local college class exercise to build these from scratch for local high school. That’s not imaginable…

Source being on GitHub does not equal "is open source". Restrictions on commercial use are incompatible with open source. The Open Source Initiative, which coined the term and evaluates licenses for compatibility with the Open Source Definition (see https://opensource.org/definition), is crystal clear on this point: if your license has a field-of-use restriction -- such as a restriction on commercial use -- then it's not open source. This is why Numworks is careful not to describe their software as "open source", to their credit.

Re: Numworks: open-source, Python-compatible handheld graphing calculator

#13

Post by dbcurtis »

kfogel wrote: post #11
dbcurtis wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please explain. NC only prohibits commercial exploitation, correct?

That's right. And prohibiting commercial exploitation violates one of the key clauses of both the Open Source Definition and the Free Software Definition (the part about freedom of use for any purpose). See https://opensource.org/faq#commercial . In other words "open source" doesn't just mean "you can see the source code" (that's known as "visible source" or "source available" software). Rather, "open source" means "…

so the GPL is not open source?

Re: Numworks: open-source, Python-compatible handheld graphing calculator

#14

Post by kfogel »

dbcurtis wrote: post #13
kfogel wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's right. And prohibiting commercial exploitation violates one of the key clauses of both the Open Source Definition and the Free Software Definition (the part about freedom of use for any purpose). See https://opensource.org/faq#commercial . In other words "open source" doesn't just mean "you can see the source code" (that's known as "visible source" or "source available" software). Rather, "open source" means "…

so the GPL is not open source?

The GPL allows all commercial use. It does not allow proprietary restrictions on redistribution, under certain circumstances, but that's different. You can charge as much money as you want for GPL'd software, and you can base your commercial service on GPL'd software, etc (by the way, this is not just hypothetical -- billions of dollars of commercial activity are based on GPL'd software, including but not limited to the Linux kernel). It's just that when someone receives a copy of GPL'd software from you, you can't place further restrictions on their redistribution -- the permission to redistribute under the GPL comes with the copies. Think of it this way: the GPL prevents monopoly, while permitting commercial use.

Re: Numworks: open-source, Python-compatible handheld graphing calculator

#15

Post by mehrdadn »

kfogel wrote: post #4

It's not open source; the Hacker News headline is wrong. The Numworks web site does not claim it's open source, by the way -- the problem is only in the headline here. The license is Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial ShareAlike (CC-BY-NC-SA), and the presence of the "NonCommercial" clause makes it unambiguously non-open-source. If that clause were not present, CC-BY-SA would still be an odd license to use fo…

Instead of asserting the title is wrong, it would make sense to recognize that the title is correct, and that the discrepancy with your beliefs is simply a result of the fact that plenty of other people do not, in fact, take OSI's opinions as facts like you do.

Re: Numworks: open-source, Python-compatible handheld graphing calculator

#16

Post by susam »

dbcurtis wrote: post #8
kfogel wrote: post #4

It's not open source; the Hacker News headline is wrong. The Numworks web site does not claim it's open source, by the way -- the problem is only in the headline here. The license is Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial ShareAlike (CC-BY-NC-SA), and the presence of the "NonCommercial" clause makes it unambiguously non-open-source. If that clause were not present, CC-BY-SA would still be an odd license to use fo…

Please explain. NC only prohibits commercial exploitation, correct?

CC BY-NC-SA does not permit the use of the software for commercial purposes. This violates point 6 of the Open Source Definition[OSD] that says, "No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor: The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research."

[OSD]: https://opensource.org/docs/osd

Re: Numworks: open-source, Python-compatible handheld graphing calculator

#17

Post by foo101 »

mehrdadn wrote: post #15
kfogel wrote: post #4

It's not open source; the Hacker News headline is wrong. The Numworks web site does not claim it's open source, by the way -- the problem is only in the headline here. The license is Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial ShareAlike (CC-BY-NC-SA), and the presence of the "NonCommercial" clause makes it unambiguously non-open-source. If that clause were not present, CC-BY-SA would still be an odd license to use fo…

Instead of asserting the title is wrong, it would make sense to recognize that the title is correct, and that the discrepancy with your beliefs is simply a result of the fact that plenty of other people do not, in fact, take OSI's opinions as facts like you do.

The title is indeed wrong. There is no definition or usage of the word "open source" that is compatible with restriction of commercial usage.

Never in the history of free software or open source software from the release of Donald Knuth's TeX in 1979, to the birth of FSF in 1985, or the formalization of OSD in 1998 was it ever acceptable to forbid commercial usage in something that is known as open source.

The corruption of the word "open source" to mean anything with source code available on GitHub under a non-commercial license is very recent and does not reflect the true origin or meaning of the word "open source".

The implication that CC-BY-NC-SA could be open source seems to be your belief which is not based on facts.

Re: Numworks: open-source, Python-compatible handheld graphing calculator

#18

Post by foo101 »

marmaduke wrote: post #7
kfogel wrote: post #4

It's not open source; the Hacker News headline is wrong. The Numworks web site does not claim it's open source, by the way -- the problem is only in the headline here. The license is Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial ShareAlike (CC-BY-NC-SA), and the presence of the "NonCommercial" clause makes it unambiguously non-open-source. If that clause were not present, CC-BY-SA would still be an odd license to use fo…

Source appear to be on GitHub. Non commercial is not incompatible with open source. It makes sense to me that to get the investment required to fund this, you’d want sole rights to commercialize. Nothing prevents someone else from building a cheaper DIY version as long as they don’t sell it. For example it could be a local college class exercise to build these from scratch for local high school. That’s not imaginable…

> It makes sense to me that to get the investment required to fund this, you’d want sole rights to commercialize.

It indeed does make sense to commercialize. Nobody said otherwise. But making good sense does not make a software open source. Releasing a software under an open source license makes a software open source. CC-BY-NC-SA is not such a license.

Re: Numworks: open-source, Python-compatible handheld graphing calculator

#19

Post by Ecco »

You may want to check out:

The whole calculator running in a browser, thanks to emscripten : https://www.numworks.com/simulator/

An interactive PCB viewer, in the browser again : https://www.numworks.com/resources/engineering/hardware/elec...

Full schematics https://www.numworks.com/resources/engineering/hardware/elec...

And of course the whole source code to the operating system, https://github.com/numworks/epsilon

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