Hi,
On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 05:15:55PM -0500, Yosef Zlochower wrote:
Jeff Winicour, Maria Babiuc-Hamilton, Bela Szilagyi, and I are working on an arrangement for Cauchy-Characteristic extraction. We were thinking of releasing it as an open source tool under the Einstein toolkit and were wondering about the procedure for getting the code included and suggestions for licenses (we would like to request that users of the code cite appropriate references).
The usual procedure is to suggest inclusion on the users mailing list users@einsteintoolkit.org. This ideally includes a short summary of what that code is actually doing, and how to obtain this software currently, so that others have an idea what this is about and can take a closer look. Discussion on the email list and/or at the weekly phone call would then decide about the inclusion. Of course it would be very nice if you could introduce and present this in person at such a call, but that is not a requirement.
Before that happens however, you should also made up your mind about the license you want to use. Technically speaking, it has to be an open source license to have it included in the Einstein Toolkit. However, not all open source licenses are compatible with each other. Because of that, we (the Einstein toolkit maintainers) suggest you to choose a license which is compatible to the GPL license. You can get bit more information about that at http://einsteintoolkit.org/about/licenses, especially a link to a list of compatible licenses.
You mention that you would like to request that users of the code cite appropriate references, and that is a very understandable wish. It is important to care about wording here. It would be not compatible with the GPL to try to enforce (by specifying that it is necessary) to cite something. However, most of us wouldn't go to court anyway in case of violations, so the Einstein Toolkit contains several modules which choose one of the set of (GPL of various versions, LGPL), and merely request users to cite something. This is described here:
http://einsteintoolkit.org/info/citing/index.php
This has in mind, that sometimes it is not even possible to cite properly, even if one would like to. This, of course cannot be enforced, and has to rely on the good will of the community. I suggest that you see if this could fit your needs.
Of course feel free to ask any more questions. I personally would welcome your contribution and I believe that I speak for many of us in this.
Frank Loeffler