October 2004 - Cosmo-torun

Re: AA/2004/2055
by Boud Roukema 05 Oct '04

05 Oct '04

Witam, IMHO the A&A editors are rather confused - here's their letter in response to our algebra paper http://de.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0409533. Why did they write such a confused letter? IMHO that sort of speculation is probably better not discussed publicly. The fact is that they sent me a confused letter, and IMHO there should be a reply. Note that our paper does not contain any reference to software at all. > From aanda.paris at obspm.fr Fri Oct 1 17:28:03 2004 > Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 13:50:39 +0200 > From: aanda.paris at obspm.fr > To: boud at astro.uni.torun.pl > Subject: AA/2004/2055 > > 29/09/2004 > > Dr Boudewijn F. Roukema > boud at astro.uni.torun.pl > > Our Ref. : AA/2004/2055 > > > Dear Boud, > We are sorry that we cannot consider your paper for publication in > A&A, since it is based on the HealPix software, that has been > developped by Gorski et al, and is still actively developped and > improved, and is widely distributed on the web (now on the ESO web > site), and is widely used. It is distributed freely, with all the > code sources (in fortran 90 or in C, etc..), and therefore your > publication could be considered as a plagiat. The authors themselves > could have done this paper, and if they have not judged it worth > while, you have just to convince them to do so, or at least > collaborate with them to do so. > A paper like this, with them as co-authors, would not have this > problem. > But apparently they judge that the publication on the web as it is > now is sufficient, > > with best wishes, > > The Editors For the moment this is only a *proposal* of a reply to A&A. However, it is a public discussion with the aim of finding consensus using the formal consensus method. Having a secret discussion is pointless when we are doing public science and education. Anyway, here's the proposal. Comments, suggestions, welcome. Deadline: Fri 8 October 2004 (of course, if anyone needs a longer deadline, please say so). pozdr boud %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% PROPOSED REPLY TO A&A %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% DEADLINE fri 8 oct 2004 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Dear Editors, On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 aanda.paris at obspm.fr wrote: > 29/09/2004 > > Dr Boudewijn F. Roukema > boud at astro.uni.torun.pl > > Our Ref. : AA/2004/2055 > > > Dear Boud, > > We are sorry that we cannot consider your paper for publication in > A&A, since it is based on the HealPix software, that has been The second half of the above statement is false. Our paper contains algebra regarding a pixelisation system which is independent of any software implementation. It is not based on the HealPix software. > developped by Gorski et al, and is still actively developped and > improved, and is widely distributed on the web (now on the ESO web > site), and is widely used. It is distributed freely, with all the This status of the Gorski et al software package is irrelevant regarding the scientific value of the algebra - "ideas, principles, algorithms" - behind the pixelisation system. This is independent of any software implementation. Nevertheless, since you refer to that software, you might like to note that the Gorski et al software is *not* distributed under a free software licence (see http://www.gnu.org) It is formally correct that it is distributed at zero cost, but it is *not* "free software". The Gorski et al software licence may not be redistributed without the permission of the authors. This violates software freedoms 2 and 3: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html You are certainly aware that Astronomy & Astrophysics is a European journal, and many European governments are now committed to using free software. One of the most powerful elements of free software is the GNU General Public Licence, issued by the Free Software Foundation. I think it is relevant in this case to quote the GNU Manifesto, which you may not have read: http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html ; "Don't programmers deserve a reward for their creativity?" ; ; If anything deserves a reward, it is social contribution. Creativity ; can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to ; use the results. If programmers deserve to be rewarded for creating ; innovative programs, by the same token they deserve to be punished if ; they restrict the use of these programs. (in French: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.fr.html ) Gorski et al restrict the use of their programs. Again, however, this is unrelated to our paper, which has nothing to do with software: it only regards algebra. > code sources (in fortran 90 or in C, etc..), and therefore your > publication could be considered as a plagiat. The authors themselves Our paper contains no reference to software, so it is difficult to understand your reference to "plagiat". Please consider the COUNCIL DIRECTIVE of 14 May 1991 on the legal protection of computer programs (91/250/EEC) of THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, http://www.scaramanga.co.uk/archives/directive-91-250-EEC.html : Whereas, for the avoidance of doubt, it has to be made clear that only : the expression of a computer program is protected and that ideas and : principles which underlie any element of a program, including those : which underlie its interfaces, are not protected by copyright under : this Directive; : : Whereas, in accordance with this principle of copyright, to the extent : that logic, algorithms and programming languages comprise ideas and : principles, those ideas and principles are not protected under this : Directive; : : : 2. Protection in accordance with this Directive shall apply to the : expression in any form of a computer program. Ideas and principles : which underlie any element of a computer program, including those : which underlie its interfaces, are not protected by copyright under : this Directive. There is no computer program *expressed* in the submitted paper, though there are clearly ideas in the paper which *can* be expressed in a computer program. If our paper is correct, and this can only be independently decided by an independent referee, then the ideas in our paper must correspond to the non-free software package distributed at ESO. However, this is the task of the referee to decide, not the Editors. You might also like to note the point of view of Numerical Recipes: http://www.library.cornell.edu/nr/bookfpdf/f0-1.pdf ; Copyright does not protect ideas, but only the expression of those ; ideas in a particular form. In the case of a computer program, the ideas ; consist of the program's methodology and algorithm, including the ; necessary sequence of steps adopted by the programmer. The expression of ; those ideas is the program source code (particularly any arbitrary or ; stylistic choices embodied in it), its derived object code, and any ; other derivative works. ; ; If you analyze the ideas contained in a program, and then express those ; ideas in your own completely different implementation, then that new ; program implementation belongs to you. That is what we have done for those ; programs in this book that are not entirely of our own devising. Note that here, Numerical Recipes state that they have used the ideas and algorithms of computer programs devised by others - "not entirely of our own devising" - but have implemented them in their own style. Yet let us return to our article: it does not concern software - it only concerns the solution to a system of coordinates, which the authors chose to publish in 1999 without including the full algebra of the system. Calculating the algebra requires a bit of work - that is what is presented in the paper so that other cosmologists can profit from this without having to rederive it from scratch. > could have done this paper, and if they have not judged it worth > while, you have just to convince them to do so, or at least > collaborate with them to do so. A paper like this, with them as > co-authors, would not have this problem. But apparently they judge > that the publication on the web as it is now is sufficient, We did propose co-authorship to the authors of the software on 8 Sep 2004: http://cosmo.torun.pl/pipermail/cosmo-torun/2004-September/000522.html and we pointed out that if we did not hear any response by 22 Sep, we would presume that they were uninterested. On 21 Sep, some of those authors chose to publish a paper similar to the one we had already sent them: http://de.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0409513 In this paper, BTW, in formulae (13) and (14), there is a clear inspiration from our own notation in Sections 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 of our paper, but without citation. However, back to the subject. Our paper is based on solving the unsolved definitions in Gorski et al 1999a, 1999b. It is completely independent of any software. Moreover, the effect is to make it possible for cosmologists to implement software solutions for a pixel-coordinate system which monopolises cosmological observational data and presently is not implemented in free software. The algebraic solution to this pixel-coordinate system has not been published in any astronomical journal. It is difficult to understand how Astronomy & Astrophysics can refuse to publish original work which is useful and practical for cosmologists wishing to avoid the use of non-free software. The opinions of the authors of non-free software are irrelevant for Astronomy & Astrophysics. Any article published in Astronomy & Astrophysics must contain a bibliography. What is the meaning of this bibliography? In many cases when an article is cited, it means that the authors of the article have used some of the ideas and algorithms in the cited articles, and it is considered normal scientific practice to give credit to those authors of the cited articles, while nevertheless showing how those ideas can be improved and/or corrected, and possibly arguing that the ideas in the cited article are fundamentally wrong. What does A&A normally do when an article is accompanied by a bibliography (i.e. nearly every article, IMHO), especially in the case where the authors of the submitted article and those of the cited article may have different points of view on the correctness or usefulness of those ideas or how to implement them in scientific research? IMHO, it sends the article to an independent referee. It does not tell the authors of the submitted article that use of ideas which are, in principle, implicitly present in another article could be considered "plagiat" and that consent of the authors of the cited article is necessary for publication of the submitted article. At least, that is my understanding of how A&A works. Software has no extra copyright protection to text. But again, it should be made clear: if you read our submitted paper, you will see that it is independent of any software. Please read it. Best regards Boud %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %%%%%%%%%%%%%% END OF PROPOSED REPLY TO A&A %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% DEADLINE fri 8 oct 2004 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

2 8

shift from sympa@astro to mailman at adjani
by Boud Roukema 01 Oct '04

01 Oct '04

Witam, To make less work for Andrzej M in managing sympa on newton, and also as he and i discussed initially (a looong time ago), i've started shifting the mailing lists to adjani. So for the moment please use: cosmo-torun at adjani.astro.uni.torun.pl or use the alias cosmo-torun at cosmo.torun.pl The cosmo.torun.pl alias should also work for the adjani www pages - the general domain names we use here really are quite ridiculously long IMHO. i thought that cosmo.pl would be a bit too pretentious - but hopefully we have enough cooperation between CAMK and CA-UMK that we can together use cosmo.torun.pl. :) i've automatically described people who were on cosmo-torun at astro to cosmo-torun at adjani - but i haven't (yet) shifted the other lists. IMHO it is also worth thinking of what the best way of having lists is - the aim is to that we have good communication and are motivated by what each other is doing, and that on useful subjects it is easy to find info, but at the same time to avoid spamming. So far, i haven't really used any lists for much real work on a project, even though that was my idea. i realise that these were dictatorial decisions - but my feeling is that people are probably more concerned about decisions on scientific content, or for the undergrad students, decisions on course organisation and exams. Any thoughts, please comment. (Nothing about bramki on these lists, though. ;) pozdr boud

2 2

cosmo-torun test
by Andrzej Marecki 01 Oct '04

01 Oct '04

If this gets posted on cosmo-torun list then cosmo-torun at astro.uni.torun.pl still works as before although is is now an alias to cosmo-torun at cosmo.torun.pl am

1 0