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GNU Parallel, where have you been all my life?

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Re: GNU Parallel, where have you been all my life?

#81

Post by dahart »

throwaway277432 wrote: post #33

Is the author still adding the "cite me or pay 10000€" notice to the output? And calling that GPL? And still answering every xargs Stackoverflow question with "you should use GNU Parallel" instead of answering the question? That really gets old quickly when googling for xarg answers. These are just some of the reasons I'll never use parallel. xargs is perfectly fine for most usecases, and it can do everything I need…

> Is the author still adding the "cite me or pay 10000€" notice to the output? And calling that GPL?

IIRC the citation notice was cleared by Stallman as GPL compatible. I’d be surprised if anyone’s paid, I assumed that’s rhetoric to imply the value of a citation, or lack of citation, for anyone publishing scientific works.

> These are just some of the reasons I’ll never use parallel.

Hey I’ve actually ranted on HN before about the citation notice (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15319715) - in part because I find the language of the notice a little misleading; it’s not tradition to write citations for tools used to conduct research, and it’s a requirement (not just tradition) to cite academic sources. If I used parallel to speed up some calculations, that doesn’t justify an academic citation. I don’t cite bash or python or C++ when I write papers either. On the other hand, if I’m writing a computer science paper about how to parallelize code, and especially if I compare it to GNU Parallel, then a citation isn’t optional, and I don’t need a guilt trip to add one, it’ll get requested in review, and rejected without. Is there even a journal publication to cite? (Edit: found it - the request is to cite an article in USENIX magazine.) So I find the notice a little irritating and I’m not sure who it’s aimed at exactly, or what the history of Ole feeling snubbed by scientists really is. Maybe some people were trying to compete with GNU Parallel and failing to cite it? Maybe Ole is paid by an organization that appreciates citations and will continue to fund development on Parallel if there’s evidence of it’s use in academia?

That said, GNU Parallel really is totally awesome, the documentation is amazing, and the citation notice is a one-time thing you can silence permanently. I don’t think the notice is a good reason to never use Parallel, and I do think Parallel is worth using, FWIW.

Re: GNU Parallel, where have you been all my life?

#82

Post by Bjartr »

Matl wrote: post #68
throwaway277432 wrote: post #33

Is the author still adding the "cite me or pay 10000€" notice to the output? And calling that GPL? And still answering every xargs Stackoverflow question with "you should use GNU Parallel" instead of answering the question? That really gets old quickly when googling for xarg answers. These are just some of the reasons I'll never use parallel. xargs is perfectly fine for most usecases, and it can do everything I need…

> And calling that GPL? You can add any message you want into your GPL program. Also, a GPL program does not have to be free. This has nothing to do with the GPL. You can say in your program that 'by using this software you agree that you're a a cat' and license it under the GPL. That does not mean the GPL relates to cats in any way.

The message isn't part of the license, and it's phrased in a way that wouldn't be binding if it were.

It says "please cite" and "feel free to not cite if you pay".

It doesn't say "must cite" or "you may only not cite if you pay".

IANAL, but it doesn't seem like it would interact with the GPL at all. So the worst that could be said is that the implementation is annoying or in poor taste.

Re: GNU Parallel, where have you been all my life?

#83

Post by 542458 »

smcleod wrote: post #69
Matl wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're a startup and relicensing previously open source code under a restrictive license or doing other shady things you'll get plenty of defenders to line up to say 'hey, they have to make a living somehow', but if a single guy tries to make a living via a simple message in a widely used program all hell breaks loose. What gives?

I could be wrong here and this is the first I’ve heard of this but I suspect it’s the language / way he goes about communicating. On the surface at least it comes across as a little annoying / demanding, things like him having a website where he shames people that don’t cite him by name, I suspect the ‘legal’ claims being made aren’t that solid either. Don’t get me wrong it’s a neat tool - but it’s just one in a huge…

> I suspect the ‘legal’ claims being made aren’t that solid either

Section 7 of the GPL specifically says that additional restrictive terms on GPL software (like “pay me $1000 or cite me”) can be ignored or removed. If the software’s author doesn’t want people to remove his additional terms he shouldn’t have used the GPL. Publicly shaming other open source contributions for doing something that the GPL explicitly and deliberately permits (removing additional restrictive terms) is extremely improper in my opinion.

Re: GNU Parallel, where have you been all my life?

#84

Post by CuriousCosmic »

akerl_ wrote: post #57
bombcar wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read that more as a “common courtesy asks that you do X, but I’m negotiable - send a check and I won’t care about courtesy anymore.” Which is a fair enough position to take, in my opinion.

That's a very liberal interpretation of the reasonably plain language in the notice.

If you read the FAQ they have regarding the citation notice for GNU Parallel, it's made clear that it is not part of the license in any way and only applies to projects that are part of/the basis for academic papers. If it does apply to your project and you don't cite, at absolute worst you could get in trouble with your university or the academic community but even then it's almost certainly going to be mild at worst.

But importantly you can use the software however you want that is compatible with GPLv3. That includes ignoring or removing the citation notice without paying a cent. However just because it's legal doesn't mean it won't come with the potential for social consequences.

    == Is the citation notice compatible with GPLv3? ==
    
    Yes. The wording has been cleared by Richard M. Stallman to be compatible with GPLv3. This is because the citation notice is not part of the license, but part of academic tradition.

    Therefore the notice is not adding a term that would require citation as mentioned on:
    https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#RequireCitation

    The link only addresses the license and copyright law. It does not address academic tradition, and the citation notice only refers to academic tradition.

    [...]
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/parallel.git/tree/doc/cita...

and from the GPL faq itself (which said citation FAQ references):

    Does the GPL allow me to add terms that would require citation or acknowledgment in research papers which use the GPL-covered software or its output? (#RequireCitation)
    
    No, this is not permitted under the terms of the GPL. While we recognize that proper citation is an important part of academic publications, citation cannot be added as an additional requirement to the GPL. Requiring citation in research papers which made use of GPLed software goes beyond what would be an acceptable additional requirement under section 7(b) of GPLv3, and therefore would be considered an additional restriction under Section 7 of the GPL. And copyright law does not allow you to place such a requirement on the output of software, regardless of whether it is licensed under the terms of the GPL or some other license.
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#RequireCitation

---

TLDR: The citation notice is a "cite it in academic works or pay me" agreement that is as legally binding as a pinky promise. You can break it without concern but some people may look negatively on that and it may come with social consequences.

Re: GNU Parallel, where have you been all my life?

#86

Post by [deleted] »

Matl wrote: post #68
throwaway277432 wrote: post #33

Is the author still adding the "cite me or pay 10000€" notice to the output? And calling that GPL? And still answering every xargs Stackoverflow question with "you should use GNU Parallel" instead of answering the question? That really gets old quickly when googling for xarg answers. These are just some of the reasons I'll never use parallel. xargs is perfectly fine for most usecases, and it can do everything I need…

> And calling that GPL? You can add any message you want into your GPL program. Also, a GPL program does not have to be free. This has nothing to do with the GPL. You can say in your program that 'by using this software you agree that you're a a cat' and license it under the GPL. That does not mean the GPL relates to cats in any way.

[deleted]

Re: GNU Parallel, where have you been all my life?

#87

Post by ilyt »

Matl wrote: post #64
akerl_ wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll note there are also plenty of "defenders" on this page. It turns out the community is made up of people with a wide range of opinions.

Of course, but HN does tend to have a lot more patience for scrappy startups that scrappy lone, non-commercial devs from what I can observe. The question was rhetorical, I know that this place is frequented by quite a lot of people who wish to be part of the next YC batch, so they see themselves in the shoes of the startup, rather than the solo dev. Still, I don't think it should be this way.

>Of course, but HN does tend to have a lot more patience for scrappy startups

Look what parent company of HN does

Re: GNU Parallel, where have you been all my life?

#88

Post by ilyt »

notpachet wrote: post #39
bloopernova wrote: post #4

There's a shell script version of GNU parallel that's great for CI/CD pipeline tasks. You just keep it in your repo and source it as needed. It's incredibly useful, we use it in one build to batch process a few thousand things in groups of 25. Edited to add: finally got signed in to work, you create the script via: parallel --embed > scriptname.sh It's about 14,000 lines of awesome and works on "ash, bash, dash, ksh,…

Maybe this is a silly question, but what advantage do you get from checking that huge file into VC instead of just installing parallel ahead of time on the CI images?

Parallel was born way before docker and modern CI practices. Having one script that did it all was more of a benefit before those become commonplace

Re: GNU Parallel, where have you been all my life?

#89

Post by jnsaff2 »

5e92cb50239222b wrote: post #66
dsissitka wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's in current Fedora's: [david@pc ~]$ echo foo | parallel echo 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: Tange, O. (2023, July 22). GNU Parallel 20230722 ('Приго́жин'). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8175685 This helps funding further development; AND IT WON'T COST…

> Tange, O. (2023, July 22). GNU Parallel 20230722 ('Приго́жин'). Looks like the latest release is named after Prigozhin. Yeah, probably that one, although I couldn't find anything in the mailing list to confirm it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin edit: all releases are named after current political events: https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/parallel.git/refs/

Looking at the release history it may be that the releases are named after some front page daily news headline or something.

Even so, knowingly naming a release after a war criminal is very off-putting.

Re: GNU Parallel, where have you been all my life?

#90

Post by chriswarbo »

gjvc wrote: post #55
green-orca wrote: post #34

I'm using task spooler a lot for parallel background processing. What I like the most it the ability to add further tasks to the queue after processing has already started. https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/xenial/man1/tsp.1.html

from that man page, there is a name clash with "ts" from moreutils

Some distros rename the binary to 'tsp' (I think Debian does that)
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