Package: parallel
Version: 20161222-1
Severity: normal
Dear Maintainer,
I have a script that uses gnu parallel. I am already used to the nagware
notice that asks me to cite it in my academic work with bogus claims about
how this is academic tradition (it isn't) and telling me for money we can
forget about academic integrity.
This is annoying, but let's chalk this down to an idiosyncratic author and
hey, I am not easy either, right?
Unfortunately, the switch that the nag message tells you to use ("To
silence this citation notice: run 'parallel --citation'.) makes it even
worse - scripts now completely break:
# parallel --citation --eta -l2 -j 31 rm -rfv :::
/fs/doom/exportg/tobedeleted/*
Academic tradition requires you to cite works you base your article on.
When using programs that use GNU Parallel to process data for publication
please cite:
more text omitted]
This helps funding further development; AND IT WON'T COST YOU A CENT.
If you pay 10000 EUR you should feel free to use GNU Parallel without citing.
If you send a copy of your published article to ta...@gnu.org, it will be
mentioned in the release notes of next version of GNU Parallel.
Type: 'will cite' and press enter.
>
At this point the program stops and basically asks me to lie - I can't
cite it because I am not even preparing a paper that could contain
citations, so why should I enter "will cite"?
This is unacceptable - a debian program effectively blackmails me to
interactively enter "will cite" just to be able to use it.
Why is a program in debian gnu/linux asking to pay money or actively lie
("will cite" - I won't) just to be able to use it?
This makes little sense, and the code should simply be removed.
Are these additional requirements to use this program even allowed by the
GPL (I don't think the GPL restricts use, or allows restricting the use)
and the DFSG? I am a bit doubtful, but even if it is, I think it's pretty
unethical for debian to make these kinds of demands, and therefore, the
simplest way to fix it would be to remove this nagware code altogether.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: 9.1
APT prefers stable
APT policy: (990, 'stable'), (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'unstable'),
(500, 'testing'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386
Kernel: Linux 4.9.0-4-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=C (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/bash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
Versions of packages parallel depends on:
ii perl 5.24.1-3+deb9u2
ii procps 2:3.3.12-3
ii sysstat 11.4.3-2
parallel recommends no packages.
parallel suggests no packages.
-- no debconf information
