[wyldckat]

Originally Posted by RicMat

Dose the OpenFOAM GPL not afford some kind of protection against this sort of thing? Its a bit troubling for the project if one of OF's rivals can inflict such disruption merely with a claim of infringement without it yet being tested in the courts.

The project that got legally hit was the Extend project, not the official OpenFOAM project. For reference:

• Official OpenFOAM project: http://www.openfoam.org/
• Extend project: http://www.extend-project.de/ + http://sourceforge.net/projects/openfoam-extend/

GPL is only a license to do whatever we want, only if the code was GPL to start with...

Anyway, the main problem here was due to putting all your eggs in one basket. If each development line and repository were being kept separately, this wouldn't have happened.
I can only guess that this is also why the official OpenFOAM project only accepts code contributions in an independent repository: https://github.com/Unsupported-Contr...OpenFOAM-2.1.x

[hjasak]

Dear All,

A brief update is required. I am sorry I have kept everyone in darkness, but that is the nature of the Beast.

- Ansys Inc. is using a fact that they do not need to present ANY material supporting their claim to SourceForge for the repository to be taken down. No evidence has been presented, because (in my opinion) there is none to present
- the code involved relates to iterative linear solver technology: you can find the information on algorithms etc. in the textbook by Y. Saad: Iterative Methods for Sparse Linear Systems
- the code involved has been written in approx. 2004 and is publicly available since approx 2005
- I have been corresponding with their lawyer, but it is completely one-directional: to date, they did not respond to a detailed response (eg. history of linear solver development, text-book information, who and when wrote the code etc) from 25/Jan/2013 and did not react to two hurry-up notes, the latest being on 18/Feb/2013
- I have managed to get in touch with one of the lawyers and raised the issue of returning the repository on-line, to which they promised to respond by 8/Mar/2013, adter confirming with their client. As of now, they did not respond and I feel another day waiting would be fair
- the last news I heard was that "Ansys did not request the complete repository to be taken down" and "they are considering my request on bringing it back on-line" (8/Mar/2013) - which is rather contradictory.

I am working to resolve this in a clean way and make sure we collectively do not waste any more time than necessary, either now or in the future. Please leave this with me and I will keep you posted.

Hrvoje Jasak

[A.Wendy]

hi,

are there any new news?

andy

[hjasak]

Yes: the letters have been sent to SourceForge where Ansys requests the repository to be reinstated. We are now waiting for mechanics to be completed.

I will keep you posted,

Hrv

[gschaider]

Originally Posted by hjasak

Yes: the letters have been sent to SourceForge where Ansys requests the repository to be reinstated. We are now waiting for mechanics to be completed.

I will keep you posted,

Hrv

Hurra. Let's start a sing-a-long http://www.bobdylan.com/us/songs/i-shall-be-released "Any day now, Any day now ..."

[Linse]

According to a friend of mine, the repository was online recently, but is down again.
Are there any news on that latest downtime?

[hjasak]

I have just chased SpurceForge regarding this, but did not received the response yet. Please note that it was a letter from Ansys that requires the repository to bring back, so the situation is not confrontational on the level of keeping the repository down.

As far as I can tell, this is only inertia from SourceForge rather than anything else.

I will keep you posted,

Hrvoje