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Comment by dehrmann | Hacker News Reader

It's nice, but the citation bit strikes me as very non-free:

> If you use --will-cite in scripts to be run by others you are making it harder for others to see the citation notice. The development of GNU parallel is indirectly financed through citations, so if your users do not know they should cite then you are making it harder to finance development. However, if you pay 10000 EUR, you have done your part to finance future development and should feel free to use --will-cite in scripts.

> If you do not want to help financing future development by letting other users see the citation notice or by paying, then please consider using another tool instead of GNU parallel. You can find some of the alternatives in man parallel_alternatives.

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It doesn't affect your right to do anything with the software. It doesn't even affect your right to remove this citation notice (and some distributions do so). Free software is not about software not being annoying; merely about your right to remove the annoyances.

I'm not certain GNU parallel's approach to obtaining funding is a good strategy, but I find it weird that people object to it on philosophical or legal grounds.

> I'm not certain GNU parallel's approach to obtaining funding is a good strategy,

Indeed, it's a good question! I know that, for the SGI UV300 we got through an NIH S10 grant, the usage of the supercomputer is tracked by looking for the grant number in publication acknowledgements. Yes, we already got the money, so you may wonder "what does it matter?", but our ability to get future funding (especially as the UV300 nears retirement age) depends (at least in part) on showing how well we used our previous funding.

In our case, the funding came through an NIH grant, so we ask people reference the grant number. But more broadly, and especially for software, issuing a DOI for released versions (through a service like Zenodo https://zenodo.org), along with a request for acknowledgement, gives a way to track usage. For example, the 20150322 release of parallel (DOI 10.5281/zenodo.16303) has been cited at least 63 times (per https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16303).

Looking at https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=D7I0K34AAAAJ&hl=en, it seems the 2011 version of Parallel has been cited over 1,000 times.

The author is at the University of Copenhagen (per the Google Scholar link above), so it's entirely possible that at least some of the funding for his employment is coming from sources that use citation counts as an indicator that they are "getting their money's worth" by continuing to fund (at least part of) Mr. Tange's employment.

I was trying to use parallel properly for the first time last week and the nag screen put me off and made me choose an alternative.

I ended up with the moreutils one and it appears to work just as well for my simple needs.

I think that is the right thing to do: Don't like it? Don't use it.

Also: https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/parallel.git/tree/doc/cita...

Your concern about this being non-free is addressed by an entire FAQ. Here's a link to the FAQ page from the software's Git repo:

https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/parallel.git/tree/doc/cita...

Thinking about the citation notice and whether the software is safe to use at work is why I just use xargs.

I don't understand how GNU finds this acceptable...

[edited for formatting and to fix Git link]

According to https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/parallel.git/tree/doc/cita...

> == Is the citation notice compatible with GPLv3? ==

> Yes. The wording has been cleared by Richard M. Stallman to be compatible with GPLv3. This is because the citation notice is not part of the license, but part of academic tradition.

> Therefore the notice is not adding a term that would require citation as mentioned on: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#RequireCitation

If you are of the view that clearance by RMS is clearance by FSF/GNU, then that's how they find it acceptable. If you take a different view, then the next part of that section applies:

> If you disagree with Richard M. Stallman's interpretation and feel the citation notice does not adhere to GPLv3, you should treat the software as if it is not available under GPLv3. And since GPLv3 is the only thing that would give you the right to change it, you would not be allowed to change the software.

There's also an interesting comparison to be made:

> == How do I silence the citation notice? ==

> Run this once:

> parallel --citation

> It takes less than 10 seconds to do and is thus comparable to an 'OK. Do not show this again'-dialog box seen in LibreOffice, Firefox and similar programs.

This is an excellent explanation of why "GNU finds this acceptable".

Note that the citation message can also be easily silenced just by creating an empty file:

    touch ~/.parallel/will-cite

Tools shouldn't be probing the file system for files not related to the job they are doing, period.

The right way to do this is to patch the behavior out of the program, which you're entitled to do by its license. Or, rather by the fact that the license doesn't concern itself with use.

That is covered in the FAQ:

  == I do not like the notice. Can I fork GNU Parallel and remove it? ==

  Yes. GNU Parallel is released under GNU GPLv3 and thus you are allowed
  to fork the code. But you have to make sure that your forked version
  cannot be confused with the original, so for one thing you cannot call
  it anything similar to GNU Parallel as that would cause confusion
  between your forked version and the original.

If you're not redistributing it, this doesn't apply to you; you're only using the program.

I believe that a distro could get around this by providing a script a user can execute, or a patch that the user can apply that removes the nag code from the installation of GNU Parallel. Even if we take the view that the script creates a fork, it only creates a private one on the user's machine, and not anything that is redistributed; without distribution taking place, what is taking place is use.

> Tools shouldn't be probing the file system for files not related to the job they are doing, period.

You're entitled to your preferences and your own fork of the GNU Parallel. I'll even help you out with that - all you need to do to remove the citation message is to comment out lines 1840-1843 in "src/parallel" file.

Just please don't demand everyone else (i.e. distro maintainers) to stab the main developer in the back just to accommodate your preferences.

I don't care what GNU thinks, but it's simply not scalable.

Imagine a world where every utility has its own irritating nag message that needs to be turned off.

> I don't care what GNU thinks, but it's simply not scalable.

How so?

A lot of software requires you to configure it before the first run, and we regard that as scalable.

A lot of software requires you to pay for it before the first run (most Microsoft server software comes to mind), yet we regard that as scalable. You can also pay for gnu paralell: https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/parallel.git/tree/doc/cita...

Is it because you insist that you get software for free (zero cost in gnu speak)? Because that is really not what the free software movement is all about.

    $ ls
    Thank you for using the /bin/ls utility!
    Did you know that you can upgrade to LS PRO for a mere fraction of a bitcoin? 
    Or just post a selfie tagged #LS_PRO_RULES on Twitter!
    LS PRO has many amazing features that you are missing.
    This message can be removed by using the --no-awesome-ls-pro-upgrade-msg flag.
    Here is your file listing:
    .bashrc .catconf .cprc .ddconfig .dfprefs  ...
    $ exit -1

Honestly, I fail to see the problem, if I had to run `ls --no-awesome-ls-pro-upgrade-msg` once when I installed it the first time. And if I did not like it, I could use one of the alternatives to `ls` or build my own.

In LibreOffice I have to click a "Don't show tip of the day again" every time I install it on an new machine, and personally I have no problem with that. If I had, I would use something else.

Zsh asks me to configure it, first time I run it. I find that slightly annoying, but not to the extend that I would even consider complaining, sending a patch, or using an alternative.

But I assume you are aware that your comparison is really not valid: Parellel is not limited in features - you do not get extra features by paying/citing. What you are doing is keeping it alive.

Also, if you really do not like the notice, why not just pay for it? Are you opposed to paying for free software? And if so, how do you suggest developers of free software make a living? And why are you not actively doing that for GNU Parallel, which you clearly have so strong opinions on, that you are willing to spend time complaining but not willing to ignore (and use another tool)?

Don't need to imagine, I lived in that world where most utilities I used were shareware with a nag screen on startup...

I still remember when those were not of the "OK, don't show this again" type, so you could not simply stop them first after the first run.

I think I'll pass on GNU/Linux: Shareware Edition.

But for only $20, they'll send you Episode II, GNU Hurd.

We may need a standard directory and behavior for naggy utilities of this type. Maybe something like:

    for util in /usr/annoying/bin/*; do
        touch ~/.$(basename $util)/stfu
    done

Of course I don't like the idea of having to create a prefs file for every obnoxious utility, but that's the way parallel is currently operating. Maybe all such utilities could be required to use standard nag library with a global setting.

Would it not be more fruitful addressing the hard issue: Funding.

https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/parallel.git/tree/doc/cita...

I think many free software developers would rejoice if you cracked that problem.

It seems to be encouraging inappropriate citation. It is certainly not standard practice and would probably be considered something of a violation of academic ethics.

If you're not describing an experiment or system that uses GNU parallel as one of its key components then it makes no sense to cite it any more than it does to cite any other utility.

> If you're not describing an experiment or system that uses GNU parallel as one of its key components then it makes no sense to cite it any more than it does to cite any other utility.

GNU Parallel agrees with you, but also gives you a test of when to regard it as a "key component" (as you put it):

https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/parallel.git/tree/doc/cita...

> If you feel the benefit from using GNU Parallel is too small to warrant a citation, then prove that by simply using another tool. [...] If it is too much work replacing the use of GNU Parallel, then it is a good indication that the contribution to the research is big enough to warrant a citation.

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