<story><title>GNU Gneural Network</title><url>https://www.gnu.org/software/gneuralnetwork/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>_delirium</author><text>I agree with the general motivation that having too much AI research in the hands of software companies who keep it proprietary harms transparency and progress. But there is already a &lt;i&gt;lot&lt;/i&gt; of neural-network free software, so why another package? For example, these widely used packages are free software, and seemingly more featureful: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;torch.ch&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;torch.ch&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.deeplearning.net&amp;#x2F;software&amp;#x2F;theano&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.deeplearning.net&amp;#x2F;software&amp;#x2F;theano&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;pybrain.org&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;pybrain.org&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.tensorflow.org&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.tensorflow.org&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;leenissen.dk&amp;#x2F;fann&amp;#x2F;wp&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;leenissen.dk&amp;#x2F;fann&amp;#x2F;wp&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;chainer.org&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;chainer.org&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mindcrime</author><text>&lt;i&gt;I agree with the general motivation that having too much AI research in the hands of software companies who keep it proprietary harms transparency and progress. But there is already a lot of neural-network free software, so why another package?&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Not only is there a lot out there, a lot of it was released &lt;i&gt;by&lt;/i&gt; companies like IBM[1], Google[2], Yahoo[3], Baidu[4], Microsoft[5], etc.  So while I&amp;#x27;m generally sympathetic to the FSF&amp;#x27;s position, this case almost seems like a bit of a reversal of things:  there doesn&amp;#x27;t seem to be a problem with for-profit companies taking the fruits of the labors of volunteers and building on top of it... instead, we have a surplus of riches, released as Open Source by a bunch of big companies. It just happens that most of it is under a permissive license like the ALv2.&lt;p&gt;Of course, one could suggest that that state of affairs isn&amp;#x27;t natural and&amp;#x2F;or sustainable, and that this doesn&amp;#x27;t negate the issues the FSF is dedicated to.  So I support this effort, even if it seems redundant on some level at the moment.&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;systemml.incubator.apache.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;systemml.incubator.apache.org&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2]: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;tensorflow.org&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;tensorflow.org&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[3]: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;yahoohadoop.tumblr.com&amp;#x2F;post&amp;#x2F;139916563586&amp;#x2F;caffeonspark-open-sourced-for-distributed-deep&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;yahoohadoop.tumblr.com&amp;#x2F;post&amp;#x2F;139916563586&amp;#x2F;caffeonspark...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[4]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;baidu-research&amp;#x2F;warp-ctc&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;baidu-research&amp;#x2F;warp-ctc&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[5]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;Microsoft&amp;#x2F;CNTK&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;github.com&amp;#x2F;Microsoft&amp;#x2F;CNTK&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>GNU Gneural Network</title><url>https://www.gnu.org/software/gneuralnetwork/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>_delirium</author><text>I agree with the general motivation that having too much AI research in the hands of software companies who keep it proprietary harms transparency and progress. But there is already a &lt;i&gt;lot&lt;/i&gt; of neural-network free software, so why another package? For example, these widely used packages are free software, and seemingly more featureful: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;torch.ch&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;torch.ch&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.deeplearning.net&amp;#x2F;software&amp;#x2F;theano&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.deeplearning.net&amp;#x2F;software&amp;#x2F;theano&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;pybrain.org&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;pybrain.org&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.tensorflow.org&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.tensorflow.org&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;leenissen.dk&amp;#x2F;fann&amp;#x2F;wp&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;leenissen.dk&amp;#x2F;fann&amp;#x2F;wp&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;chainer.org&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;chainer.org&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>simondedalus</author><text>I think the idea is to use awareness of GNU and also to focus the attention of people with the skill to contribute on neural-networks.&lt;p&gt;What I mean is, you&amp;#x27;re right of course, there&amp;#x27;s much better neural-network free software already available, but GNU endorsing an official package 1) could get people whose concerns are more strongly geared toward free software ethics to start paying attention to neural networks, and 2) get people, regardless of their ideological commitment to anything, to be more aware both of the ethical issues and of neural-network software--just in virtue of GNU&amp;#x27;s mild fame.&lt;p&gt;and of course, unless the maintainer of this package makes weird choices and alienates other projects, there&amp;#x27;s the other benefit of projects learning from each other and poaching code and strategies for the greater good.</text></comment>