GNU Parallel is nagware

[Ian Turner]

GNU parallel prints a very long message on stdin when invoked. This message does not benefit the user in any way and should be removed.

The message can be suppressed with --will-cite, but the manpage suggests this creates a legal obligation:
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

Best is to remove the message, as well as the --will-cite and --citation stuff from the source and the manpages.

I'm happy to submit a patch if others agree.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: parallel 20161222-1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-23.25-generic 4.15.18
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-23-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.2
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: KDE
Date: Mon Jul 2 16:46:46 2018
InstallationDate: Installed on 2018-03-23 (101 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 18.04 LTS "Bionic Beaver" - Alpha amd64 (20180306.1)
PackageArchitecture: all
SourcePackage: parallel
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[ole.tange (n-launchpad-net-tange-dk)]

Funding a free software project is hard. GNU parallel is no exception. On top of that it seems the less visible a project is, the harder it is to get funding. And the nature of GNU Parallel is that it will never be seen by "the guy with the checkbook", but only by the people doing the actual work.

This problem has been covered by others - though no solution has been found:
https://www.slideshare.net/NadiaEghbal/consider-the-maintainer
https://www.numfocus.org/blog/why-is-numpy-only-now-getting-funded/

Before implementing the citation notice it was discussed with the users:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/parallel/2013-11/msg00006.html

Having to run 'parallel --citation' once is no doubt not an ideal solution, but no one has so far come up with an ideal solution - neither for funding GNU parallel nor other free software.

If you believe you have the perfect solution, you should try it out, and if it works, you should post it on the email list. Ideas that will cost work and which have not been tested are, however, unlikely to be prioritized.

Please note that GPL version 3 gives you the right to fork GNU Parallel under a new name, but it does not give you the right distribute modified copies with the citation notice disabled under the name GNU Parallel. To do that you need to be the owner of the GNU Parallel trademark.

Description of the xt:Commerce case in OLG Duesseldorf
http://www.inta.org/INTABulletin/Pages/GERMANYGeneralPublicLicenseDoesNotPermitUseofThird-PartyTrademarksforAdvertisingModifiedVersionsofOpen-SourceSoftware.aspx

The verdict in German
https://www.admody.com/urteilsdatenbank/cafe6fdaeed3/OLG-Duesseldorf_Urteil_vom_28-September-2010_Az_I-20-U-41-09

Examples of other software limiting derivatives by the same name
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux_derivatives#Legal_aspects
https://tm.joomla.org/trademark-faq.html
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/trademarks/faq/

Running 'parallel --citation' one single time should take less than 10 seconds to do, and will disable the citation notice. If that is too much trouble for you, why not use one of the alternatives instead? See a list in: 'man parallel_alternatives'

[Ian Turner (vectro)]

The nagging approach is not appropriate for general-use software distributions like Ubuntu. Ubuntu should remove the citation stuff from the code base, and rename the package if necessary to accomplish that.

Problems with the citation requests in GNU Parallel have been widely discussed elsewhere, but to rehash:
* This is not scalable. If applied to every software package in Ubuntu it would make the distribution unusable. The most basic Ubuntu system contains hundreds of packages; if each requested 10 seconds from a user, it would add up to hours on every use.
* The nag notice confuses users with respect to their legal responsibilities and the software is requesting users agree to pay. "If you pay 10000 EUR you should feel free to use GNU Parallel without citing." ... "If you use '--will-cite' in scripts you are expected to pay the 10000 EUR, because you are making it harder to see the citation notice." This denies users the ability to use the software as they wish, for whatever purpose they wish, without payment.
* The citation request goes against GNU policy. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#RequireCitation
* Because GNU Parallel is not from a scientific journal, its citation would be inappropriate in many contexts.
* It sets a bad precedent. What's to stop further projects from asking more of users, such as tweets, Instagram followers, or cash?
* It makes the software incompatible with other scripting tools (unless using --will-cite) and goes against the UNIX philosophy of terseness.
* It goes against the Ubuntu community mission <https://www.ubuntu.com/community/mission>.

[ole.tange (n-launchpad-net-tange-dk)]

"Is it alright to compromise or even deliberately ignore the happiness of the maintainers so that we can enjoy free and open source software?"

(Slide 8 from: https://www.slideshare.net/NadiaEghbal/consider-the-maintainer)

I feel sad that you completely ignore the key issue: Long term funding of development of free software.

You do not come up with an alternative way to making a living.

Instead it seems you somehow expect that doing an amount of work (forking and renaming all references), that goes against the wishes of the author, will make it likely that you will get more free software developed.

You bring up issues that I regard as red herrings instead of using your energy to tackle the hard problem of funding:

* As long as we have not found the perfect way of earning a living from free software, we should try out as many methods as possible. Some will try one method, and others will try another. Saying it is not scalable is like saying that it is not scalable to pay for software. If you pay my salary I will be happy to remove the notice.

* The notice does not deny users the ability to _use_ the software as they wish, for whatever purpose they wish, without payment. It does, however, make it clear what the wishes of the author are.

* The citation notice as you can see is carefully worded so that it is not a legal requirement.

* GNU Parallel has been cited multiple times in Nature and a plethora of other scientific journals. I have yet to see a manuscript rejected due to a citation of something that was good enough to use for the research. If you have a manuscript rejected due to GNU Parallel's citation, I would be very interested in seeing the rejection.

* I have the feeling that since you do not mention the specific scripting tools by name, that you have not actually experienced any incompatibilities with GNU Parallel that were gone when using `--will-cite`. Prove me wrong by posting an MCVE.

* Funding free software seems to go well along with the two primary goals of Ubuntu's mission: "To bring free software to the widest audience" "To accelerate innovation and underpin operations" If there is no software being developed those point are only of theoretical use.

Which brings us back to the real issue at hand: Long term funding of development of free software.

Solve that, and you can have GNU Parallel development without the citation notice.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[tbenst (tbenst)]

The requirement to type "will cite" has always bothered me a bit. I must use literally thousands of software packages in my (biosciences) research, and only only "GNU parallel" does this nag. For example, I use parallel to launch multiple copies of a file conversion software. It is not customary in my field to cite the file conversion software even though this is essential to the research at hand, and parallel is a (very welcome! much appreciated!) convenience with a time-saving contribution. Many journals restrict citations to the <50 most pertinent, and one never sees Matlab or Python making the cut in a biology journal. It would be crazy noise to have 10,000 citations in a paper on the entire software dependency chain.

It is a bit irksome to type "will cite" when knowing that 1) it's not a contract & not actually required, and 2) it's not true.

[ole.tange (n-launchpad-net-tange-dk)]

T> The requirement to type "will cite" has always bothered me a bit.

And I agree: It is not ideal.

You can read the background in the FAQ:
https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/parallel.git/tree/doc/citation-notice-faq.txt

T> I must use literally thousands of software packages in my (biosciences) research, and only only "GNU parallel" does this nag. For example, I use parallel to launch multiple copies of a file conversion software. It is not customary in my field to cite the file conversion software even though this is essential to the research at hand, and parallel is a (very welcome! much appreciated!) convenience with a time-saving contribution.

As mentioned in the FAQ:

"""
If you feel the benefit from using GNU Parallel is too small to
warrant a citation, then prove that by simply using another tool.
"""

There are even links to many alternatives in 'man parallel_alternatives'.

You may think it is a small thing, but it is really a matter of
long term survival. From the FAQ:

"""
> How important is the notice for the survival of GNU Parallel?

Citations is what indirectly funds maintaining GNU Parallel. Before
the citation notice was implemented hardly anyone cited GNU Parallel,
and that would not have been sustainable in the long term. Funding
development aligns well with "We will give back to the free software
community" and "To accelerate innovation and underpin operations".

Therefore it is more important to keep the notice than to be included
in different distributions. Specifically, it will be preferable to be
moved from Debian main to Debian non-free over having the notice
removed (and staying in main).

In other words: It is preferable having fewer users, who all know they
should cite, over having many users, who do not know they should cite.

This is because a long-term survival with funding is more important
than short-term gains in popularity that can be achieved by being
distributed as part of a distribution.

If the goal had been to get more users, then the license would have
been public domain.
"""

T> Many journals restrict citations to the <50 most pertinent

I note that you do not mention a single journal by name. I have yet
to come across a journal, that restricts citations to 50:

Nature does not: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-65360-y
PLOS does not: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0220953
CELL does not: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009286741930220X
The Journal of Cell Biology does not: https://journals.biologists.com/jcs/pages/manuscript-prep#ref

But to give you the benefit of the doubt: let us assume you can
find a journal that has this restriction, then you could simply use
an alternative, if you do not want to cite GNU Parallel or pay.

If you neither want to help financing development by citing or by
paying, then you should contemplate whether GNU Parallel is really
the right tool for you. If you do not want to help, I will prefer
you use a different tool.

We see a similar situation with companies wanting to use GPL'ed
software, but not wanting to abide by the GPL: They like the
software, but dislike that they have to give the users freedom.
...

[tbenst (tbenst)]

The issue is that the software is licensed as GPLv3, and the GPLv3 does not permit this notice: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#RequireCitation

The Debian maintainers reviewed the citation notice as implemented in parallel and viewed it to be in violation of GPLv3, and patched it out, renaming from “GNU parallel” to “parallel”. Arch Linux and OpenSUSE have also patched out the citation notice. Summary of other distros stance here: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/110584#issuecomment-766158970.

> I have yet to come across a journal, that restricts citations to 50:
Nature restricts to 30, or up to 50 (https://www.nature.com/nature/for-authors/initial-submission). I haven’t looked at the submission guidelines for all the others but expect similar restrictions.

[ole.tange (n-launchpad-net-tange-dk)]

T> The issue is that the software is licensed as GPLv3, and the GPLv3
T> does not permit this notice: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-
T> faq.en.html#RequireCitation

RMS disagrees with you. See the FAQ:

https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/parallel.git/tree/doc/citation-notice-faq.txt#n27

T> The Debian maintainers reviewed the citation notice as implemented
T> in parallel and viewed it to be in violation of GPLv3, and patched
T> it out, renaming from “GNU parallel” to “parallel”. Arch Linux and
T> OpenSUSE have also patched out the citation notice. Summary of
T> other distros stance here:
T> https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/110584#issuecomment-766158970.

And they thereby make it harder for me to justify spending time on
development. If they feel the citation notice violates GPLv3 (and they
thus disagree with RMS), then the fair thing would be to assume the
author's intentions are correct, and that the software is
mis-licensed. If this would cause it to be moved to non-free, then
that would be fine by me.

Instead they did what suited *them* better, and thereby made it harder
to finance development long term. If you want more free software to be
developed, then going against the developers' wishes sends a pretty
bad signal to would-be developers.

I cannot say it better than Nadia Eghbal in
https://www.slideshare.net/NadiaEghbal/consider-the-maintainer:

"Is it alright to compromise, or even deliberately ignore, the
happiness of maintainers so we that can enjoy free and open source
software?"

>> I have yet to come across a journal, that restricts citations to 50:

T> Nature restricts to 30, or up to 50
T> (https://www.nature.com/nature/for-authors/initial-submission).

I think you misinterpret those. They are guidelines. Not
restrictions. This proof with 67 references (one of them being GNU
Parallel) was also included in my previous email:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-65360-y

A more convincing argument would be a rejection letter from a
journal.

But even if there was a restriction, you could simply use an
alternative or build your own. No one forces you to use GNU Parallel.

I hope we agree that our long term goal is to have more free
software developed.