[coin-discuss] What's the scope of COIN?

[Matthew Saltzman]

Attempting to rouse us from our reverie, Robin (robinlh at us.ibm.com) wrote:

>What is should be the scope of COIN? Should be accept any software that is
>contributed?  What do you think?

and later:

>There are two types of contributions to COIN.  (1) modifications/extensions
>to existing code in CVS and (2) entirely new modules to CVS. Right now we
>have a couple of folks interested in making type 2 contributions.  What
>should be the guidelines for contributions?

In keeping with the community-minded principles underpinning Open Source
and Free ("as in speech, not as in beer") Software, I think we ought to 
require that anything distributed through the COIN site be licensed under
terms approved by the Open Source Initiative (www.opensource.org).

Software that stands on its own can be licensed under any approved terms.
Software that is to be folded into the existing OSI structure will probably
have to be licensed under the same terms as the existing code (namely, the
IBM license).

I don't think we should be in the business of deciding if licenses
qualify, so that may require cooperation from contributors to choose an
acceptable license or get their own licenses approved.  One issue is
that some of the approved licenses listed at opensource.org are written
with a specific project or vendor in mind, so we might have to be
prepared to accept licenses that are "substantially identical" to 
existing acceptable ones.

As to the question of what kinds of things we want, I would like to see
us act as a repository for *any* open-source code related to optimization,
not just COIN spinoffs.  There is already a precedent, since the DFO
code is not integrated with the rest of the COIN project.   The mechanics
of providing this service are an interesting problem, but if we address
it early, I think that it increases the likelihood that this service will
be maximally useful.

All of the above is to be considered food for discussion.  Everyone with
an opinion should feel free to pile on...

		Matthew Saltzman
		Clemson University Math Sciences
		mjs at clemson.edu
		http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs


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