gnuplot-beta — Developers and beta testers of new gnuplot code

Re: Thoughts about gnuplot license and copyrights

[Lars H. <lhe...@us...>]

 
> Unfortunately, as far as I know, there is no license which at the same 
> time is compatible with the gpl and forbids forks. Do you think Thomas 
> may have a different opinion about the gnuplot license now ?
 
 IMHO the gnuplot license is very close to the standard BSD license, which
 imposes fewer restrictions than the GPL.

Re: Thoughts about gnuplot license and copyrights

[<tim...@en...>]

Dave Denholm wrote :
> Lars Hecking <lhe...@us...> writes:
>
>  =20
>>> I have concluded that Thomas Williams is the one who has to give its
>>> agreement before an official release. Can you confirm ? Would it be
>>>      =20
>>  That is correct. As the other copyright holder, Colin Kelley, is miss=
ing
>>  in action, Thomas Williams is our only contact.
>>
>>    =20
>>> possible to have further details on his position about the license ?
>>>      =20
>
>  =20
>>> Archives say that the gpl was refused. Is there a precise reason, or =
is
>>> Thomas William simply opposed to a change ? Another open-source licen=
se
>>> may fit the needs.
>>>      =20
>
>
> My recollection is that Thomas Williams is (or was) opposed the notion
> that gnuplot might ever fork into multiple, incompatible versions.
>
>  =20
>>  I have discussed development issues with Thomas in the past, and the =
only
>>  time I ever mentioned license changes (and the "single point of failu=
re"
>>  issue) there was no reply. I'm sure that particular email was receive=
d,
>>  and we were in contact again for the 4.0 release - which he liked a l=
ot :)
>>
>>    =20
>>> By the way, as the FAQ doesn't mention it, the actual position of the
>>> author against licenses could be a good addition.
>>>      =20
>>  I really have nothing to back this up, but people like Dave Denholm o=
r
>>  Alex Woo might.
>>
>>    =20
>
> I've dug out a very old mail folder "gnuplot.legal" which contains a
> thread from around August 1977 (wow, that's old...)
>
> But I suspect it's obsolete, since it was arguing about changing the
> license to allow distribution of modified binaries. Previously, this
> was completely prohibited, but it looks like the Copyright in the 4.0
> sources at least does grant permission to distribute modified
> binaries, with a few restrictions.
>
> At the time, this was enough to happify Richard Stallman (who actually
> approached me around this time to write a truly free gnuplot clone if
> the license wouldn't get changed)
>
> It's currently just a collection of separate mh files, but if anyone's
> interested, I can pack it into an mbox and upload it somewhere.
>
>
> Since I never actually got round to making a gnuplot release during my
> time as maintenaner, I didn't have to go through all this pain myself!
>
>
> dd
>  =20
Well, that's interesting information !
(Wow, 1977 ! I was not born, and my parents just get married !)

So, some years ago,Thomas Williams refused the gpl because forks would=20
be authorized. I may understand this position, as there is a risk to=20
lose the control over a program if one allows forks for it. However,=20
gnuplot is a long-standing software, and a slightly more permissive=20
license allowing direct redistribution of modified source code is a=20
decision for a brighter future, not a decision to make it disappear...

Unfortunately, as far as I know, there is no license which at the same=20
time is compatible with the gpl and forbids forks. Do you think Thomas=20
may have a different opinion about the gnuplot license now ?

As Ethan says, the current license is just enough to make distributions=20
package their binaries and apply a small patch over the source. But,=20
apart from distributors, I am concerned about the work done on the=20
trunk. Do you know if Thomas will ever be there to give its agreement to=20
a new release ? What will happen if someday he becomes unjoinable ?

Thank you very much for these details, Dave, I find it interesting to=20
know what happened to such great piece of work in time.

Best regards,

Timoth=E9e Lecomte

Re: Thoughts about gnuplot license and copyrights

[Ethan M. <merritt@u.washington.edu>]

On Wednesday 18 January 2006 06:18 am, Dave Denholm wrote:
> It looks like the Copyright in the 4.0
> sources at least does grant permission to distribute modified
> binaries, with a few restrictions.

Right.  It currently says:

 * Permission to modify the software is granted, but not the right to
 * distribute the complete modified source code.  Modifications are to
 * be distributed as patches to the released version.  Permission to
 * distribute binaries produced by compiling modified sources is granted,
 * provided you
 *   1. distribute the corresponding source modifications from the
 *    released version in the form of a patch file along with the binaries,
 *   2. add special version identification to distinguish your version
 *    in addition to the base release version number,
 *   3. provide your name and address as the primary contact for the
 *    support of your modified version, and
 *   4. retain our contact information in regard to use of the base
 *    software.
 * Permission to distribute the released version of the source code along
 * with corresponding source modifications in the form of a patch file is
 * granted with same provisions 2 through 4 for binary distributions.

> At the time, this was enough to happify Richard Stallman (who
> actually approached me around this time to write a truly free gnuplot
> clone if the license wouldn't get changed)

As I read it, and on the basis of previous correspondence with 
members of the Debian packaging group, this is also sufficient
to allow the various linux distros to package and include 4.1
direct from the cvs version even without a new official release.
It would require packaging the 4.1 source as a diff against 4.0.
This would be a rather large diff file, admittedly.  But it would
certainly have been a reasonable mechanism for them to have
released a bug-fix update to 4.0 based on our 4.0 stable branch.
In the next release cycle we should try to make this more
obvious to the various packaging teams.

   [insert standard I-am-not-a-lawyer disclaimer]

But I really think we do need to start on the path to an official
4.2 release.  Recent suggestions from several directions to
put a 4.1 snapshot on the web site have produced little
response.   Does anyone have specific objections?
It would not commit us to any fixed release date;  it would
just start the ball rolling.

	Ethan



-- 
Ethan A Merritt
Biomolecular Structure Center
University of Washington, Seattle WA

Re: Instructions in FAQ for anonymous CVS don't seem to work

[Reuben T. <rr...@sc...>]

On Wed, 18 Jan 2006, Ethan Merritt wrote:

> On Tuesday 17 January 2006 12:30 pm, Reuben Thomas wrote:
>> I followed the instructions in the FAQ for getting to anonymous CVS,
>> and they don't seem to work (nor do they tell you what password to
>> use for cvs login).
>
> Eh. "anonymous" access means it is not sensitive to passwords.
> That's what it always means, so far as I know.

In that case, it should say so. An empty password seems to work fine 
with the SourceForge instructions.

> All I can say is that at the time I first started working with gnuplot
> via SourceForge,  the instructions for anonymous cvs access provided
> by SourceForge itself were impenetrable.

They seem pretty clear now.

> But I think it's still a good idea to provide a set of instructions on 
> the gnuplot pages as well.

Indeed, but it avoids confusion if the commands are the same.

-- 
http://rrt.sc3d.org/
Extreme programming: burn your bridges when you come to them

Re: Instructions in FAQ for anonymous CVS don't seem to work

[Ethan M. <merritt@u.washington.edu>]

On Tuesday 17 January 2006 12:30 pm, Reuben Thomas wrote:
> I followed the instructions in the FAQ for getting to anonymous CVS,
> and they don't seem to work (nor do they tell you what password to
> use for cvs login).

Eh. "anonymous" access means it is not sensitive to passwords.
That's what it always means, so far as I know.


> Looking closer, the problem you have is just that your instructions
> are out of date (they talk about cvs.gnuplot.sourceforge.net instead
> of cvs.sourceforge.net), 

You may well be right that the addresses and perhaps some other
details need to be updated.  I will have a look...
I see that Petr has already updated the page that gives a set of
bash commands.  I'll do the same for the csh version.

> but the SourceForge instructions involve 
> only two commands, and don't mess with the user's environment, so may
> be considered superior:

All I can say is that at the time I first started working with gnuplot
via SourceForge,  the instructions for anonymous cvs access provided
by SourceForge itself were impenetrable.  It was only by following the
specific advice of other gnuplot contributors that I managed to get it
working.  If SourceForge's instructions have been improved to the
point that they are understandable - that's great.  But I think it's 
still a good idea to provide a set of instructions on the gnuplot pages
as well.

> cvs -d:pserver:ano...@cv...:/cvsroot/gnuplot login
> cvs -z3 -d:pserver:ano...@cv...:/cvsroot/gnuplot co
> -P gnuplot


-- 
Ethan A Merritt
Biomolecular Structure Center
University of Washington, Seattle WA

Re: Thoughts about gnuplot license and copyrights

[Dave D. <dde...@es...>]

Lars Hecking <lhe...@us...> writes:

>> I have concluded that Thomas Williams is the one who has to give its
>> agreement before an official release. Can you confirm ? Would it be
>
>  That is correct. As the other copyright holder, Colin Kelley, is missing
>  in action, Thomas Williams is our only contact.
>
>> possible to have further details on his position about the license ?

>> Archives say that the gpl was refused. Is there a precise reason, or is
>> Thomas William simply opposed to a change ? Another open-source license
>> may fit the needs.


My recollection is that Thomas Williams is (or was) opposed the notion
that gnuplot might ever fork into multiple, incompatible versions.

>
>  I have discussed development issues with Thomas in the past, and the only
>  time I ever mentioned license changes (and the "single point of failure"
>  issue) there was no reply. I'm sure that particular email was received,
>  and we were in contact again for the 4.0 release - which he liked a lot :)
>
>> By the way, as the FAQ doesn't mention it, the actual position of the
>> author against licenses could be a good addition.
>
>  I really have nothing to back this up, but people like Dave Denholm or
>  Alex Woo might.
>

I've dug out a very old mail folder "gnuplot.legal" which contains a
thread from around August 1977 (wow, that's old...)

But I suspect it's obsolete, since it was arguing about changing the
license to allow distribution of modified binaries. Previously, this
was completely prohibited, but it looks like the Copyright in the 4.0
sources at least does grant permission to distribute modified
binaries, with a few restrictions.

At the time, this was enough to happify Richard Stallman (who actually
approached me around this time to write a truly free gnuplot clone if
the license wouldn't get changed)

It's currently just a collection of separate mh files, but if anyone's
interested, I can pack it into an mbox and upload it somewhere.


Since I never actually got round to making a gnuplot release during my
time as maintenaner, I didn't have to go through all this pain myself!


dd
-- 
Dave Denholm              <dde...@es...>       http://www.esmertec.com

Instructions in FAQ for anonymous CVS don't seem to work

[Reuben T. <rr...@sc...>]

I followed the instructions in the FAQ for getting to anonymous CVS, and 
they don't seem to work (nor do they tell you what password to use for 
cvs login).

It would be better just to include a link to SourceForge's instructions 
on how to get anonymous CVS (or copy the commands from there), at:

http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=2055

The instructions at http://www.gnuplot.info/development/index.html#DownloadCVS
are similarly problematic.

Looking closer, the problem you have is just that your instructions are 
out of date (they talk about cvs.gnuplot.sourceforge.net instead of 
cvs.sourceforge.net), but the SourceForge instructions involve only two 
commands, and don't mess with the user's environment, so may be 
considered superior:

cvs -d:pserver:ano...@cv...:/cvsroot/gnuplot login
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:ano...@cv...:/cvsroot/gnuplot co -P gnuplot

Re: Thoughts about gnuplot license and copyrights

[Lars H. <lhe...@us...>]

> I have concluded that Thomas Williams is the one who has to give its
> agreement before an official release. Can you confirm ? Would it be

 That is correct. As the other copyright holder, Colin Kelley, is missing
 in action, Thomas Williams is our only contact.

> possible to have further details on his position about the license ?
> Archives say that the gpl was refused. Is there a precise reason, or is
> Thomas William simply opposed to a change ? Another open-source license
> may fit the needs.

 I have discussed development issues with Thomas in the past, and the only
 time I ever mentioned license changes (and the "single point of failure"
 issue) there was no reply. I'm sure that particular email was received,
 and we were in contact again for the 4.0 release - which he liked a lot :)

> By the way, as the FAQ doesn't mention it, the actual position of the
> author against licenses could be a good addition.

 I really have nothing to back this up, but people like Dave Denholm or
 Alex Woo might.

Re: demos : enhanced text mode remains gets stuck on

[<tim...@en...>]

Thanks for your detailed explanations ! I don't know why, but I must
have forgotten ignore_enhanced_text somewhen after pasting the code from
another terminal... It is working now, and my next patch will include
the fix.

Best regards,

Timoth=E9e


Ethan Merritt wrote:

>On Friday 13 January 2006 06:09 am, Timoth=E9e Lecomte wrote:
> =20
>
>>Ethan reported that the enhanced text mode remains on when you run
>>"load 'all.dem' ".
>>   =20
>>
>
> =20
>
>>As it seems to be considered as a problem, I propose to add "set
>>termoption noenhanced" at the end of the demo file
>>'enhancedtext.dem'.
>>   =20
>>
>
>No, sorry.  I have explained the problem badly.
>
>The point is that even if the terminal is in enhanced text mode,
>there are times when the enhanced text processing is not wanted.
>For instance, it is almost always a bad idea to treat underscores in
>file names as indicating a subscript.  For this reason there is a=20
>core routine ignore_enhanced(TRUE) that temporarily turns off
>enhanced text processing.  ignore_enhanced(FALSE) turns is back
>on again.  The routine is implemented by providing a flag variable
>available to the terminal drivers:
>    TBOOLEAN ignore_enhanced_text;
>
>As best as I can make out, the wxWidgets terminal is not checking
>this flag.  Therefore if the terminal is in enhanced text mode, some
>strings are treated this way when they should not be.
>
>Example:
>	set termoption enhanced
>	load 'histograms.dem'
>
>In the key there are entries for "Soviet_Union" and "United_Kingdom".
>Note the underscores.  It is not intended that these be typeset as
>subscripts.  The x11, post, and other terminals correctly render these
>text strings to contain the underscore.  The wx terminal shows instead
>a subscripted next character.=20
>
> =20
>

Re: Thoughts about gnuplot license and copyrights

[<tim...@en...>]

Lars Hecking wrote:

>>I hope that I have not raised a "too-often raised" problem, already
>>answered many times. I really don't want to provoke anybody. Please
>>excuse me for any inconvenience and for the noise.
>>   =20
>>
>=20
> The topic pops up every now and then. Check the archives.
>
> =20
>
Well, sorry again for the inconvenience.
I looked into archives, and the last message that I found about the
license was written in 2004 (there has been a discussion in 2005 about
how copyrights are written in the files, but not about the license itself=
).
I have concluded that Thomas Williams is the one who has to give its
agreement before an official release. Can you confirm ? Would it be
possible to have further details on his position about the license ?
Archives say that the gpl was refused. Is there a precise reason, or is
Thomas William simply opposed to a change ? Another open-source license
may fit the needs.

By the way, as the FAQ doesn't mention it, the actual position of the
author against licenses could be a good addition.



To make this thread at least somehow useful, you will find below a
compilation of what archives say.

Best regards,

Timoth=E9e lecomte

______________________

From Hans-Bernhard Broeker
Date: 2004-07-29

On Thu, 29 Jul 2004, Roland Stigge wrote:

[...]
> I find it annoying that through a different license,
> I'm not allowed to link this software with GPL programs, most
> importantly, with GNU readline.

You, me, and a lot of others.  But the holders of the gnuplot copyright
(who are no longer involved in active development, and indeed haven't bee=
n
in a *long* time) refuse to switch to GPL.  We've tried a couple times,
and even RMS himself has (allegedly?) tried.  Nothing gave.

_____________________________

From Lars Hecking
Newsgroups: gmane.comp.graphics.gnuplot.devel
Date: 2004-06-02

> Is there a chance to get the license changed, so that debian can ship
> gnuplot with the gnu readline?

 The gnuplot license? Not much of a chance. However, I think this could
 work if readline was distributed under the LGPL instead of GPL.

__________________________________

From: Hans-Bernhard Broeker
Subject: Re: gnu readline / license
Newsgroups: gmane.comp.graphics.gnuplot.devel
Date: 2004-06-02

> Is there a chance to get the license changed, so that debian can ship
> gnuplot with the gnu readline?

Essentially: no.  Neither side of this conflict appears willing to bugde.
That has been tried in the past, but never succeeded.
________________________________

From Hans-Bernhard Broeker
Subject: Ready for wrap-up everyone?
Newsgroups: gmane.comp.graphics.gnuplot.devel
Date: 2004-04-05

in case some of us forgot, the release target date I agreed us upon was
end of *this* week?

So, what's left to do that really has to be done before then?

*) Lars: contact Tom Williams (and whoever else you contacted last
   time) for the formal "blessing" according to the gnuplot Copyright
   statement.
_____________________________________

From Hans-Bernhard Broeker
comp.graphics.apps.gnuplot
Date : 28 Jul 2003
Objet : Re: copyright/license

> Sorry if this is a silly question, but I wondered if there was any
> progress/intention to try and find the original gnuplot authors and
> ask for their permission to distribute gnuplot under GPL or some other
> open source license that doesn't carry the restrictions of the current
> setup.=20

It has been tried quite a while ago (for version 3.7.1, IIRC), and the
answer was a rather strict "no" regarding GPL. =20

Re: Thoughts about gnuplot license and copyrights

[Lars H. <lhe...@us...>]

> I hope that I have not raised a "too-often raised" problem, already
> answered many times. I really don't want to provoke anybody. Please
> excuse me for any inconvenience and for the noise.
 
 The topic pops up every now and then. Check the archives.

Thoughts about gnuplot license and copyrights

[<tim...@en...>]

Hi gnuplot developpers and users !

Recently, I have been thinking about the way gnuplot is licensed. As I
have worked a lot on the wxWidgets terminal (and am still working on
it), and as I am a strongly in favor of "libre" software, I wonder about
the future of this work...

On this mailing list, in september 2005, while talking about a possible
release of a 4.1 version, Hans-Bernhard Broeker explained :
" "People have got used to a release early --- release often" strategy.=20
Sorry, but with the licensing issues as they are, that's a non-option
for gnuplot. "

Well, "release often" is probably not the best idea, and I agree that
bugs have to be eradicated as much as possible before. However, I fear
that the situation of gnuplot tends to be : "rare release, cope with
CVS". And what will this evolve to when the people who hold the
copyrights cannot be contacted ?



With "grep -C 5 Copyright *" in the gnuplot source, I found that most of
the copyrights belong to Thomas Williams and Colin Kelley.

Some files are public domain (fit, matrix).
Most terminals don't mention who holds the copyright ("Copyright [a
year]") but specify an author later (should the reader understand that
they own the copyright ?).

Other files belong to :

Robert K. Cunningham (datafile),
Daniel Sebald (bin_hook),
Petr Mikulik (with the mention : "as open source as possible"),
Craig R. Schardt, Maurice Castro, Russell Lang (windows),
Hans-Bernhard Broeker (dynarray, windows),
Roger Fearick (pm),
Jos van der Woude (statistical functions, specfun),
Phil Type, Bruce Ravel, Gershon Elber (lisp),
Stephen L. Moshier (some code in specfun),
Lars Hecking (tables),
Ronald Florence (cgi.trm),
P. Klosowski (excl.trm),
James Darrell McCauley (grass.trm).




The copyright text mentions that it is not possible to distribute a
modified source code. So, who can give the permission ? Who gave it for
gnuplot 4.0 ? Who will give it for gnuplot 4.1 ? Who will give it later ?



I wonder if this situation has a future... What are the possibilities ?
To my (humble) mind, they are the following :

* Nothing changes concerning copyrights and license. CVS will be filled
by new (useful, powerful and innovative) code, and probably new files
with new people owning the corresponding copyrights. But one day, nobody
will be able to release officially and legally anything. gnuplot will
vanish in some backup disk at sourceforge.net   ;-)

* Something is changed on gnuplot copyright. What for ? Probably to
allow easier distributions. How ? Either by modifying the current
license, or by choosing a well-known and well-understood license
commonly used in open source programs instead. What does this imply ?
Probably to contact all developpers who own their respective copyrights,
and ask for their approval on the proposed change. Some of them disagree
or are not joinable ? Their code should probably be rewritten from scratc=
h.

Well, it's a huge decision, but what do you honestly prefer ? The first
case ? Probably not. But that might happen, really.
I don't see a valid reason to not *protect* the work of great value that
gnuplot represents.
Of course, gnuplot can also vanish with a more adapted license. But
that's not a reason.
Of course, in the early days of gnuplot, the gpl (as an example) did not
exist. But that's not a reason for not changing now.



What do you think about it ? What do Thomas Williams and Colin Kelley
think about it, as they own the copyrights for most of gnuplot code ?
Do you agree that something should be done to protect gnuplot ?

I hope that I have not raised a "too-often raised" problem, already
answered many times. I really don't want to provoke anybody. Please
excuse me for any inconvenience and for the noise.

Best regards,

Timoth=E9e Lecomte

Re: demos : enhanced text mode remains gets stuck on

[Ethan M. <merritt@u.washington.edu>]

On Friday 13 January 2006 06:09 am, Timoth=E9e Lecomte wrote:
>
> Ethan reported that the enhanced text mode remains on when you run
> "load 'all.dem' ".

> As it seems to be considered as a problem, I propose to add "set
> termoption noenhanced" at the end of the demo file
> 'enhancedtext.dem'.

No, sorry.  I have explained the problem badly.

The point is that even if the terminal is in enhanced text mode,
there are times when the enhanced text processing is not wanted.
=46or instance, it is almost always a bad idea to treat underscores in
file names as indicating a subscript.  For this reason there is a=20
core routine ignore_enhanced(TRUE) that temporarily turns off
enhanced text processing.  ignore_enhanced(FALSE) turns is back
on again.  The routine is implemented by providing a flag variable
available to the terminal drivers:
    TBOOLEAN ignore_enhanced_text;

As best as I can make out, the wxWidgets terminal is not checking
this flag.  Therefore if the terminal is in enhanced text mode, some
strings are treated this way when they should not be.

Example:
	set termoption enhanced
	load 'histograms.dem'

In the key there are entries for "Soviet_Union" and "United_Kingdom".
Note the underscores.  It is not intended that these be typeset as
subscripts.  The x11, post, and other terminals correctly render these
text strings to contain the underscore.  The wx terminal shows instead
a subscripted next character.=20

=2D-=20
Ethan A Merritt
Biomolecular Structure Center
University of Washington, Seattle WA

Re: demo : 'unset mouse' in rainbow.dem

[Ethan M. <merritt@u.washington.edu>]

On Friday 13 January 2006 05:58 am, Timoth=E9e Lecomte wrote:
> Hello !
>
> Ethan reported that the wxWidgets terminal (patch on sourceforge)
> loses mousing when running demos. The terminal may have a problem,
> but a simple 'grep mouse *' in the demo directory returns :
>
> rainbow.dem:unset mouse
>
> So rainbow.dem is setting the mouse off.
> Any reason for it ?

How strange.  I have no recollection of why that command
would be there.  "rainbow.dem" has nothing to do with=20
mousing, and has no business changing the mouse settings.
Good catch.
	thanks,

		Ethan

=2D-=20
Ethan A Merritt
Biomolecular Structure Center
University of Washington, Seattle WA

demos : enhanced text mode remains gets stuck on

[<tim...@en...>]

Hello (again) !

Ethan reported that the enhanced text mode remains on when you run "load
'all.dem' ".

As it seems to be considered as a problem, I propose to add "set
termoption noenhanced" at the end of the demo file 'enhancedtext.dem'.

Ethan said that it does not happen under the X11 terminal, but I can
assure you that it does, as there's simply no reason for the X11
terminal to disable enhanced mode after the demo, as there is no command
to do it in this demo file. However, it appears to draw all text on
normal mode, because the X11 terminal tests input strings to see if they
really contain magic characters in "{}^_@&~", and if it's the case,
draws them with the normal routine.

Do you agree to add "set termoption noenhanced" at the end of
"enhancedtext.dem" ?
If yes, can somebody do it ?

Thanks !

Regards,

Timoth=E9e Lecomte

demo : 'unset mouse' in rainbow.dem

[<tim...@en...>]

Hello !

Ethan reported that the wxWidgets terminal (patch on sourceforge) loses
mousing when running demos. The terminal may have a problem, but a
simple 'grep mouse *' in the demo directory returns :

~/gnuplot-cvs2/demo$ grep mouse *
Binary file image.dem matches
keystroke.dem:pause mouse key
Makefile:mousevariables.dem multimsh.dem multiplt.dem param.dem
pm3dcolors.dem \
Makefile.am:mousevariables.dem multimsh.dem multiplt.dem param.dem
pm3dcolors.dem \
Makefile.in:mousevariables.dem multimsh.dem multiplt.dem param.dem
pm3dcolors.dem \
mousevariables.dem:# $Id: mousevariables.dem,v 1.7 2005/01/12 00:34:09
sfeam Exp $
mousevariables.dem:pause mouse "Click on one corner of desired zoom regio=
n"
mousevariables.dem:    print "No mouse click?" ;\
mousevariables.dem:pause mouse "Click on diagonal corner of desired zoom
region"
mousevariables.dem:    print "No mouse click?" ;\
rainbow.dem:unset mouse

So rainbow.dem is setting the mouse off.
Any reason for it ?
Whatever the annwer is, either this line should be removed, or 'set
mouse' should be added at the end. (Note that 'reset' doesn't apply
here, as it doesn't act on mouse settings).

As I do not have any CVS access, can somebody do this ?


Regards,

Timoth=E9e Lecomte

Re: ftp://ftp.gnuplot.info/pub/gnuplot/testing

[Petr M. <mi...@ph...>]

> Are you able to do this or do you need me to move stuff around?  Let me
> know if you have any difficulties with the process.

Clark, please remove the below-mentioned files, and remove their
text from README. The remaining are open for discussion (with cc: of this 
mail to potential authors).


===========================================================================
===========================================================================
*** TO BE DELETED (code already in cvs) ***

arrowhead.tar.gz
arrowhead.tar.gz.asc
arrowhead-38c.zip

omega2gnuplot.patch

newhidden3d-990701.zip
newhidden3d-990701.zip.asc

windows-stdin.zip
windows-stdin.zip.asc

ggi.trm
linux.trm
gnuplot_linux.c
epslatex.tar.gz


===========================================================================
===========================================================================
*** REMAINING ***

===========================================================================

dashtype.gz
   This patch implements the ability to request the dash pattern directly on
   the plot or arrow commands. By Eric ? <sh...@al...>
   Relative to gnuplot 3.7.1.

Somebody can comment on this patch?

===========================================================================

gnuplot_opengl0.04.patch.gz
   An OpenGL outboard driver for gnuplot 3.8b or newer, written by
   Michael Cohen <Mic...@ie...>.

I think the author (or anybody else) should put this patch to gnuplot
sourceforge Patches section. It will definitely not apply, but may be
useful for future...

===========================================================================

sgml.tar.gz
   First shot at a doc to SGML converter, plus diffs for docs/Makefile.in,
   plus gnuplot.sgml.
   By Lars Hecking

I think doc2sgml.c should be put to cvs. Whether it will be used in future or
not does not matter.

===========================================================================

gnuplot.pdfcompat.patch.gz

Included below is a patch to add pdflatex compatibility to the pslatex
term when the auxfile option is selected. Without the patch, the
output of this term is incompatible with pdflatex because of the use
of postscript specials and the mechanism used to include the
postscript graphics file. The patch modifies the terminal in auxfile
mode so that postscript specials aren't used, and the graphics file is
included using a mechanism which works for postscript and pdf (ps2pdf
should be used to generate the pdf version of the postscript graphics
file). Including the following before \begin{document} allows
latex and pdflatex to be run on the same latex source file when
including pslatex (with auxfile option) outputs from the patched
gnuplot.

Author: ???

Can someone look whether there is something useful for the current
rewritten (e)pslatex?

===========================================================================

Re: "gnuplot development" page on the revised SourceForge layout

[Ethan M. <merritt@u.washington.edu>]

On Thursday 12 January 2006 10:47 am, Hans-Bernhard Broeker wrote:
>
> Ahem... CVS users don't show up in any of those download stats. 
> We're talking here about downloads of a 4.0.0 release source tarball
> vs. those of Win32 binaries made from it.

That was my point.  A low count for people downloading the
4.0 release tarball may not mean anything, given that the same
source is already in their Redhat/Suse/Mandriva/etc distribution.
If I want to rebuild from the 4.0 for some reason, I can type
"rpm --rebuild gnuplot-4.0.0-7mdk.src.rpm".
That won't show up in any SourceForge stat.

In fact, I may do exactly that in an attempt to pin down that
x11 double-free error.

-- 
Ethan A Merritt
Biomolecular Structure Center
University of Washington, Seattle WA

Re: "gnuplot development" page on the revised SourceForge layout

[Hans-Bernhard B. <br...@ph...>]

Ethan A Merritt wrote:
> On Thursday 12 January 2006 06:54 am, Hans-Bernhard Broeker wrote:
>>Ethan A Merritt wrote:

>>>This seems misleading to me.  There is no
>>>32-bit restriction in the code, 

>>No intentional one, sure.  But as a matter of fact the 16-bit builds 
>>haven't worked for quite a while now

> Heh. I wasn't even thinking of 16-bit.
> To me it read like a warning that the code wasn't 64-bit safe.

Well, since there's no heading for 64-bit Windows, nor for "all MS 
Windows" in SF.net's project categorization system, I don't think that 
can readily be helped.

>>>and the focus is not on MS Windows no matter how you look at it.

>>Ours isn't, but if you look at what the users have "voted with their 
>>feet", their message is quite clear:  The win32 binary packages have 
>>seen about as many downloads as the source and all other binary packages 
>>combined.

> I question that interpretation of the download stats.
> Downloading a binary is about the only way Windows users can get the
> package at all. 

Only if one equates "Windows users" with "computer illiterates" --- 
which may have dangerously much truth to it, but still isn't exactly 
true ;-)  It's not exactly rocket science to build gnuplot on Windows. 
  It's just a little uncomfortable having to find and install all those 
libraries first.

Right now the expected roadblock for Win32 builds would be the 
considerable mismatch between the way Boutell packages his Win32 GD 
binary distribution, and our pre-built makefiles.  None of our prepared 
makefiles or configure scripts expects to find GD installed as -lbgd, 
with all the underlying libraries (freetype, jpeg, png, ...?) swallowed 
into that 3 MB blob of a DLL.

> Really the only people who need to
> download from SourceForge are the ones interested in building the cvs
> version.

Ahem... CVS users don't show up in any of those download stats.  We're 
talking here about downloads of a 4.0.0 release source tarball vs. those 
of Win32 binaries made from it.

Re: "gnuplot development" page on the revised SourceForge layout

[Ethan A M. <merritt@u.washington.edu>]

On Thursday 12 January 2006 06:54 am, Hans-Bernhard Broeker wrote:
> Ethan A Merritt wrote:
> 
> > This seems misleading to me.  There is no
> > 32-bit restriction in the code, 
> 
> No intentional one, sure.  But as a matter of fact the 16-bit builds 
> haven't worked for quite a while now

Heh. I wasn't even thinking of 16-bit.
To me it read like a warning that the code wasn't 64-bit safe.

> > and the focus is not on MS Windows no matter how you look at it.
> 
> Ours isn't, but if you look at what the users have "voted with their 
> feet", their message is quite clear:  The win32 binary packages have 
> seen about as many downloads as the source and all other binary packages 
> combined.

I question that interpretation of the download stats.
Downloading a binary is about the only way Windows users can get the
package at all. On the linux side, gnuplot is included as a regular
part of every major distribution.  Really the only people who need to
download from SourceForge are the ones interested in building the cvs
version.

-- 
Ethan A Merritt
Biomolecular Structure Center
University of Washington, Seattle 98195-7742

Re: "gnuplot development" page on the revised SourceForge layout

[Petr M. <mi...@ph...>]

> - Linux/BSD/*nix/POSIX
>  about OS/2

yes, OS/2 is actively supported

Maybe VMS should be included as well. It was working "some time ago".

---
PM

Re: Odd error (gnuplot_x11) when running gnuplot 4.0 on Mandriva 2006

[Hans-Bernhard B. <br...@ph...>]

Ethan A Merritt wrote:
> Now I am getting very strange error messages from 4.0

It's not really any stranger than equivalent messages that have trickled 
down to us from Fedora Core users and Debianers recently.  These modern 
Linuxes come with some kind of default self-defense mechanism against 
buggy programs.  I.e. they're now picky enough to detect a dormant bug 
in that old 4.0 binary.

> gnuplot> set term x11 font "arial"
> Terminal type set to 'x11'
> Options are '0 font "arial"'
> gnuplot> plot x
> gnuplot> *** glibc detected *** free(): invalid pointer: 0xb7f9561c ***

Does that also happen if you leave out the font spec?  Does this binary 
have access to a font named 'arial'?

Re: "gnuplot development" page on the revised SourceForge layout

[Hans-Bernhard B. <br...@ph...>]

Ethan A Merritt wrote:
> Any chance that one of you can clean up some of the
> dubious listing on the "gnuplot development" page?

Clark did some, now I did some more.

Most importantly, I removed the bogus entries claiming our license were 
GPL or LGPL.

> The existence of a 3.8k snapshot is hardly breaking
> news, and should not be highlighted at the top left.

Clark apparently just deleted that entry...  But keep in in mind that 
it's not SF's fault if we produce so few news that completely outdated 
news still hasn't dropped below their radar?

> This seems misleading to me.  There is no
> 32-bit restriction in the code, 

No intentional one, sure.  But as a matter of fact the 16-bit builds 
haven't worked for quite a while now --- the last time I managed to 
squeeze gnuplot in that small box was for release 3.7.3.  I tried to do 
something about that in the run-up period to the 4.0 release, but 
eventually had to give up when it became clear that the necessary 
changes were too big to contemplate that shortly before a release.  I 
even held a little poll in the newsgroup to find out if anyone cared --- 
looked like nobody did, so we abandoned that.

As it is right now, a 16-bit gnuplot doesn't build even with *all*
terminal drivers disabled.  The break-neck problem is that graphics.c 
alone now contains more than 64K of code.  I managed to produce a build 
only by effectively breaking graphics.c in two and applying the 
'outboard postscript includes' patch.  It still crashes rather lot, 
though, and I don't think it is worthwile tracking those down ;-(

> and the focus is not on MS Windows no matter how you look at it.

Ours isn't, but if you look at what the users have "voted with their 
feet", their message is quite clear:  The win32 binary packages have 
seen about as many downloads as the source and all other binary packages 
combined.

 > I'd opt to list only "OS portable".

I added a more-or-less comprehensive list of all our supported 
platforms.  Since the list is now much longer, the perceived focus on 
Win32 should now be less pronounced.  We can't do anything about Win32 
being listed before "portable", though --- well, not without pestering 
SF staff about it.

Re: "gnuplot development" page on the revised SourceForge layout

[Clark G. <ga...@di...>]

On Wed, 11 Jan 2006 11:34:50 -0800, "Ethan A Merritt"
<merritt@u.washington.edu> said:
> Any chance that one of you can clean up some of the
> dubious listing on the "gnuplot development" page?
> 
> The existence of a 3.8k snapshot is hardly breaking
> news, and should not be highlighted at the top left.
> I'd love to see it replaced by a pointer to a 4.1 snapshot,
> but that's a separate question.

Done.

> The "Operating System" section lists us as
>   All 32-bit MS Windows (95/98/NT/2000/XP),
>   OS Portable (Source code to work with many OS platforms)
> 
> This seems misleading to me.  There is no
> 32-bit restriction in the code, and the focus is not
> on MS Windows no matter how you look at it. I'd opt to
> list only "OS portable".  If we're going to mention

I'm not so sure I agree.  We have generally had semi-supported Windows
distributions, but I don't think there is anyone doing regular
regression testing on Windows 286 anymore.  If you'd like to take that
on, we can add that. :-)  But it isn't a matter of there being a Windows
focus -- of course we don't focus on it!  But we do tend to have a
useable version that someone keeps reasonably maintained in binary
distro, so it is reasonable to attract users for that purpose.  Maybe no
one does any Windows regression testing or binary distribution anymore
-- would anyone care to 'fess up here?

> windows in particular, then might as well also tick
> off the categories "All POSIX" and "Classic" (includes Atari).

POSIX: done

Do we keep a reasonably modern binary build for Atari?  We do tend to do
this for Windows, and we have source tarballs for *nix.  I don't recall
the current status of Mac binaries (looks like the link is broken), but
that could be a possible addition if some claims it.  I certainly don't
see deleting Windows unless we really disavow all knowledge.  I think we
tend to have a *lot* of users consider gnuplot only because there is a
Windows binary distro.  I have added the "All POSIX", though ... I think
that is fair advertising and likely to be something people will search
for.

I think the standard of "gets at least some regression testing fairly
regularly and/or is a specific design objective" is the standard to use
here, and as such I think it is fair to say:
 - Linux/BSD/*nix/POSIX
 - source that will work in a lot of misc places
 - Windows (only suitable to include if we also do binary)
 - maybe MacOS (if someone would confirm that this is a platform they
 regularly build on, I'll add this ... in the past, this has been pretty
 touch-and-go)
 - otherwise as someone specifically claims blame (Do we still care
 about OS/2 or DOS?  We do have 4.0 builds available for these.)

We could use a more inclusive net -- I still keep the historical stuff,
including the HPLX port (which I actually use on occassion :-) -- on the
ftp site, but I don't know that it is fair to include that as a
"supported" platform for development.  Maybe a more complete list of
older "unsupported" platforms could be organized, but I don't think
that's the point.  For "development" purposes, I think my definition
above is pretty reasonable, though I'd be happy to hear from those who
have differing views to consider.

--ckg
--
Clark Gaylord
Blacksburg, VA USA
ga...@di...

Odd error (gnuplot_x11) when running gnuplot 4.0 on Mandriva 2006

[Ethan A M. <merritt@u.washington.edu>]

I keep binaries of gnuplot 3.7 and 4.0 around for testing
backward compatibilities.  Up until now I haven't had any
problem with them, other than making sure that I have copies
of the relevant older shared libraries as well.

However, I recently upgraded my linux systems to Mandriva 2006.
Now I am getting very strange error messages from 4.0

gnuplot> set term x11 font "arial"
Terminal type set to 'x11'
Options are '0 font "arial"'
gnuplot> plot x
gnuplot> *** glibc detected *** free(): invalid pointer: 0xb7f9561c ***

This seems to be coming from gnuplot_x11, which immediately dies.
Yes, it's the 4.0 version of gnuplot_x11.

The same binary runs fine if I boot into the previous version
of the operating system.

-- 
Ethan A Merritt
Biomolecular Structure Center
University of Washington, Seattle 98195-7742