Help liberate proprietary code

Please note our deadline to receive donations for this auction is Wednesday June 24th 9:00 PDT

(Donations after this will still go to a good cause though)

This is a plea for anyone who may care to help raise funds or spread the word about trying to save the PathScale assets.  PathScale's EKO compiler suit is known to be one of the highest performance compilers in the industry.  Parts of it along with other SiCortex assets are being auctioned off this week.  To the best of my knowledge most of the proprietary PathScale code could easily be vetted and liberated. (List provided at the bottom)

Linux Fund a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization has very kindly agreed to help out by not only receiving donations, but also donating and placing a bid to acquire the PathScale assets.

Main goals and benefit
    * Open source as much code as possible (List of possible code provided below)
    * Most importantly - Break new ground on ways to liberate proprietary software
    * Tax deductible donation for those in US

Please help spread the word or if you can visit the donation page

http://sl.osunix.org/liberate-code
(or direct link http://linuxfund.org/pathscale/ )

For the rest of this post I'll be a bit more verbose...

My side goals
    * Steward the code to ensure continued high quality
    * Help all disaffected PathScale customers with best effort community support
    * Spur further innovative ideas as a result of the newly open sourced code

Back up plan
    * Attempt to purchase the copyright from the resulting winning bidder
    * Hope a good company gains the rights to the code and will push everything they can open source

Beyond any individual donation this really could prove to be an interesting way for open source to shine.  By working together to liberate software we can then turn bad situations into opportunities.  I'm not suggesting to throw a party, but trying to recognize the value of all the time and hard work the developers have contributed to these projects.  Nobody wants to see years of effort lost and wasted.

Help spread the word or talk to your boss about making a donation..

Other ways..

(I don't mean to be selfish here, but linking to this article, slashdot, digg and various other news/PR networks)
http://www.codestrom.com/wandering/2009/06/help-liberate-proprietary-code.html

or provide some background info and link directly to the donations page.
http://sl.osunix.org/liberate-code (http://linuxfund.org/pathscale/)

IRC - Drop by to ask a question, yell or give a bit of encouragement

#linuxfund on irc.freenode.net


Disclaimer : Some info below may have my opinions interwoven

Specifics and opinions about the PathScale situation..

Many of the PathScale customer don't know or weren't aware that there was an open source community quietly existing for years.  While the commercial PathScale EKO compiler underwent extensive testing and had commercial support there was a sister open source project. (open64 - http://www.open64.net )

With the economy in a downturn it's more important than ever to think about sustainable software. Open source provides a way for a community to grow and push competition, innovation and growth beyond traditional proprietary software.  It isn't a panacea, but can in some cases make a lot of sense.  It is fully possible to deliver high quality software and have a business model around service or support contracts. In fact there are few popular open source projects which don't have a company doing this.

PathScale code and documentation I'm hoping to get liberated kindly provided by google cache [1]

I'm assuming that any code which is entirely proprietary was developed solely by PathScale and easy to vet and liberate.

Primary list:

libpscrt
libopenmp
Man pages
PathF90 assign command
PathOpt utility
PathDB (debugger)

Probably targets, but need more infomation :

libmpath
libmv
libpathfortran
libpathfstart  

If I have my way... any code or information which can be liberated will be liberated.  (lawyers or other legal issues would be the only thing I can see holding things back)

[1]
http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:5OqaG6TfCWcJ:www.pathscale.com/ws/docs/LEGAL.pdf+pathscale+legal+notices&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Feel free to contact me for more information, questions or ideas..

C. Bergström
codestr0m@osunix.org
Direct - 415-269-8386

(Provided for convenience  - http://sl.osunix.org/liberate-code )