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#21 |
Senior Member
Martin Hegedus
Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 500
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I just emailed Henry Weller at SGI and OpenCFD to find out if SGI got the blessing from the US State Department. I asked them to respond to this list. Hopefully we will hear back. Obviously the SGI lawyers should know about, and have a position on, export regulations since they deal with supercomputers and the US government.
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#22 |
Senior Member
Santiago Marquez Damian
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Santa Fe, Santa Fe, Argentina
Posts: 452
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In order to sum up to the entropy I also want to express my humble opinion about this topic. It looks pretty strange to SGI buying OpenFOAM, it sounds like OpenCFD started not to have enough funding or something like that, being bought by such a company like SGI is losing your independence. On the other hand OpenCFD launched a "commitment to the users" about remaining OpenFOAM as Free Software (http://www.openfoam.com/news/open-free.php). I hope they keep their word.
It wouldn't be strange for me that in a near future we could choose between a vanilla version of OpenFOAM and the full free (cost) version, like RedHat and Fedora. Even more, I think OpenCFD was doing that all the time with specially taylored solutions for their customers. Regarding codes like RELAP, we use RELAP here in Argentina, but as somebody said its distribution is controlled by DOE, but it is not GPL licensed. Regards.
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Santiago MÁRQUEZ DAMIÁN, Ph.D. Research Scientist Research Center for Computational Methods (CIMEC) - CONICET/UNL Tel: 54-342-4511594 Int. 7032 Colectora Ruta Nac. 168 / Paraje El Pozo (3000) Santa Fe - Argentina. http://www.cimec.org.ar |
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#23 | ||
Senior Member
Laurence R. McGlashan
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 370
Rep Power: 23 ![]() |
There's a lot of negativity on this thread, it's cheered me up in a strange way!
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Laurence R. McGlashan :: Website |
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#24 | |
Senior Member
Martin Hegedus
Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 500
Rep Power: 19 ![]() |
I hope that people don't think I'm contributing negativity. However, I do feel uncertain.
I was actually going in the direction of creating tools which rely on OpenFOAM. I realize that the pre SGI version of OpenFOAM will always be out there. And freely available. But I want to know where it is going. Realistically. And I'm trying to filter out any Wall Street marketing hype from SGI. Edit: Quote:
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#25 |
Senior Member
Santiago Marquez Damian
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Santa Fe, Santa Fe, Argentina
Posts: 452
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A full referenced manual like Fluent's one. What is the theory behind MULES for example?
Hope this new time of OpenCFD within SGI could bring new documentation. Documenting is expensive and takes a lot of time, maybe it was difficult to do that until know, but Dave concerns are totally logical. Regards.
__________________
Santiago MÁRQUEZ DAMIÁN, Ph.D. Research Scientist Research Center for Computational Methods (CIMEC) - CONICET/UNL Tel: 54-342-4511594 Int. 7032 Colectora Ruta Nac. 168 / Paraje El Pozo (3000) Santa Fe - Argentina. http://www.cimec.org.ar |
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#26 | |
Senior Member
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While there are many issues, I am sure that this will be an improvement across the OpenFOAM community, especially if SGI embraces the community to strengthen V&V, documentation, specialized modeling, education, etc., etc. |
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#27 | |
Senior Member
Martin Hegedus
Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 500
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Quote:
BTW, for everyone else, a software code may not fall under ITAR, but DoD can restrict it. Even though work paid for by the US government supposedly is in the public domain. |
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#28 | |
Senior Member
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Quote:
Interestingly, at the 6th OpenFOAM-Workshop this summer, Bradley Kuhn of the FSF, briefly touched on the issues of ITAR and GPL. Bringing this thread back to the topic of SGI's ownership of OpenFOAM, Kuhn's talk about forming a healthily open-source community was well received by the Workshop. He summarizes his point of view here: http://goo.gl/XVNS3 |
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#29 |
Senior Member
Martin Hegedus
Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 500
Rep Power: 19 ![]() |
As far as I know, ITAR does not apply to technical documents, and software source code falls under this category, which is placed in the public domain. And public domain means that one can, at most, charge an amount which is representative of the distribution fee.
However, and this depends on how one negotiates a contract with DoD (etc.), DoD can restrict the software and the intellectual property associated with that software. How much SGI can support OpenFOAM depends on how the SGI corporation is set up and what their government contracts say. Of course if SGI is selling a flavor of Linux, I doubt any of this matters. However, CFD technology is not in the same category as a flavor of Linux. Or so I understand. And I can easily be wrong. I sure am not a lawyer. |
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#30 | |
Senior Member
Alberto Passalacqua
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Ames, Iowa, United States
Posts: 1,912
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Quote:
Of course there are technical times to follow, which for academic people mean essentially waiting for publication, then clean the code up, prepare some example, maybe some documentation. In some cases you have to ask for authorizations and go through some procedure, however there is surely a lot going on in the direction of having open source code. This is true for multiphase fluid dynamics, and also for uncertainty quantification (my two areas). Just a quick example, I am at a conference where I presented my work on multiphase flows, which has direct applications to a variety of applications (nuclear, environmental, energy, medical, ...), and one of the first question from the sponsor (a gov. agency) was if and when I am planning to release the code. ;-) This to say that this acquisition is not likely to block a significant number of developments, and surely it is not going to block the free distribution of OpenFOAM. If you look at the presentations of the last workshop (I was not there, just saw the slides so please correct me if I am wrong ![]() Just one detail about what you said on Linux: distributions are subject to export control due to encryption software. In theory the release for certain countries should not contain it. Best,
__________________
Alberto Passalacqua GeekoCFD - A free distribution based on openSUSE 64 bit with CFD tools, including OpenFOAM. Available as in both physical and virtual formats (current status: http://albertopassalacqua.com/?p=1541) OpenQBMM - An open-source implementation of quadrature-based moment methods. To obtain more accurate answers, please specify the version of OpenFOAM you are using. ![]() |
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#31 | |
Senior Member
Martin Hegedus
Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 500
Rep Power: 19 ![]() |
Quote:
![]() Correct, I don't think US export regulations will block distribution of OpenFOAM. It also doesn't block individuals, and corporations, from donating public domain efforts to it which was fully, and solely, sponsored by that individual or corporation. So lets hope that all this meshes with SGI's strategy and position. After all, they are sponsoring the OpenFOAM Foundation. So I assume there is a business strategy behind it. I also assume they did their legal homework. If this talk of restrictions changes the landscape, I assume the business strategy will also change. If there is a change in strategy, lets hope it does not affect the foundation. Ron May, who I assume is Ronald May (Director of Corporate Marketing at SGI) knows about this thread. Therefore corporate officers, and their legal counsel, probably know about it. So, maybe we will get some clarity on this. And, we'll probably find out soon enough if there is a course change. |
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#32 |
Senior Member
Arjun
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Nurenberg, Germany
Posts: 1,282
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Just wondering, where does openform-ext stand, i mean it seems there are some features like ggi that are not available to openfoam (of opencfd).
Does it mean that user would be able to all these features too. So guess my question is what would happen to other branches of openfoam. |
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#33 |
Senior Member
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Hello,
Hrv Jasak tried to adapt/customize the additional features of OF-Extend like GGI etc. to the next version of OpenCFD´s OpenFOAM. OpenCFD never included extentions that came from the Extend-Community, maybe SGI is more open to include Developments made by Ext-Community, and that Hrv Jasak does not have to chase OpenCFD´s development direction to keep the Ext-Communty developments compatible to latest version. |
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#34 | |
Senior Member
Laurence R. McGlashan
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 370
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Quote:
For me, it's been writing code that I know other people (in academia at least because that's the only environment I know) have already written. Few academics are actually willing to share code development; it doesn't agree with the quest to improve their H index. And then when we publish our work (paid for by a taxpayer often), it goes into a closed journal where nobody reads it. Or if a company funds the work then they don't want the code to be released. I find the whole thing completely hypocritical, but nobody ever brings it up on here.
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#35 | ||
Senior Member
Daniel WEI (老魏)
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Beijing, China
Posts: 689
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Quote:
Quote:
Hey guys, this is very very confusing now, how about this, that a separated OpenFOAM-Extend branch be set up on this CFD-Online forum, so that we could know where to post and contribute and where to ask and question? Let those who has doubled energy take care both two, otherwise let's just FOCUS on one please. Why not keep it simple, let each side go it own way? I wanna being simple and away from distraction.
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~ Daniel WEI ------------- Boeing Research & Technology - China Beijing, China |
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#36 | |
Senior Member
David Gaden
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Winnipeg, Canada
Posts: 437
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Quote:
The extend team has done considerable work maintaining compatibility with Official OpenFOAM, and the result is that the user base has not fragmented... and is growing faster than it would otherwise. Banning OF-extend discussion on this forum would work against this, and add pressure to break apart the user base. |
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#37 | ||
Senior Member
Daniel WEI (老魏)
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Beijing, China
Posts: 689
Blog Entries: 9
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With all due respect, I do not agree with you.
Quote:
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~ Daniel WEI ------------- Boeing Research & Technology - China Beijing, China |
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#38 | ||
Senior Member
Arjun
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Nurenberg, Germany
Posts: 1,282
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Quote:
I hope you are right. But the reason I asked that is that long time ago Hrv posted something that got stuck in my head. May be I got wrong impression because of that. I had hard time finding that post but i finally found it. http://www.cfd-online.com/Forums/ope...-openfoam.html Here is his post: Quote:
From this post, I got the impression that Hrv wanted GGI to be part of extnd project only. This is why I asked the question that what happens to features that are NOT part of openfoam of openCFD. How this whole thing going to go further. |
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#39 | |
Senior Member
Alberto Passalacqua
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Ames, Iowa, United States
Posts: 1,912
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Quote:
There is however another problem however, which is not negligible: releasing a code will cost you time after you release it, because you will start being contacted by its users to solve their problems. In other words, you will have to support it in some way. If you do not do that, releasing is quite useless, or it might be detrimental to you because the number of users who claim "it does not work" without having a real understanding of how they should set a case up is large (my personal experience). Best,
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Alberto Passalacqua GeekoCFD - A free distribution based on openSUSE 64 bit with CFD tools, including OpenFOAM. Available as in both physical and virtual formats (current status: http://albertopassalacqua.com/?p=1541) OpenQBMM - An open-source implementation of quadrature-based moment methods. To obtain more accurate answers, please specify the version of OpenFOAM you are using. ![]() |
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#40 | ||
Senior Member
Alberto Passalacqua
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Ames, Iowa, United States
Posts: 1,912
Rep Power: 36 ![]() ![]() |
Quote:
I would say that, maybe, this is an opportunity to finally have a way to contribute to OpenFOAM(r) without having two versions, so thinking of keeping things separate at this point seems a step in the other direction. Quote:
Best,
__________________
Alberto Passalacqua GeekoCFD - A free distribution based on openSUSE 64 bit with CFD tools, including OpenFOAM. Available as in both physical and virtual formats (current status: http://albertopassalacqua.com/?p=1541) OpenQBMM - An open-source implementation of quadrature-based moment methods. To obtain more accurate answers, please specify the version of OpenFOAM you are using. ![]() |
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