The rules for referencing a package or service in Fortran-lang.org explicitly require material to be open-source. This automatically excludes all commercial packages, even if they are free for academic or personal use. If Fortran-lang.org is to be a one-stop shop for Fortran resources, should these be referenced. This does not only apply to tools and packages. @cmaapic’s courses could also be referenced.
Users seeking to modernise codes will not see PlusFort (spag), fpt, SciTools (Understand) or Codee. Nor will they see commercial teaching.
I agree that commercial packages should be included. In my Fortran Tools list I mark them with (C) and state that convention. Fortran-lang does list commercial compilers.
Still it’s important to feature open-source software, while also documenting all existing widely-used packages. The suggestion in our meeting was for a separate page, or to have packages somehow sortable/filterable .
I agree that open-source and free packages should be marked. I think there are three levels of filter here:
Is it open-source?
Is it free for academic, non-industrial and/or personal use?
Is it purely commercial?
But more important are filters which describe what it does:
Is it a formatter?
Is it a linter?
Does it re-engineer/modernise the code - and how?
What flavour of Fortran does it process?
@Beliavsky’s list is very valuable, but if you were looking for something to remove COMMON blocks and GOTO statements you could spend a long time searching through it.
I would like to see a one-stop shop, not separate pages for open-source and commercial tools. And maybe a spreadsheet indicating the open-source/commercial status and which facilities are in which tool.
in addition to @Beliavsky’s list and fortran-lang there is the Fortran Wiki, which anyone can edit just using a markdown variant not too disimilar to what is used in this Discourse.
There is already a page just for commercial tools started there. Not organized the way you envision, but editable, so it could be.
Is there enough overlap in functionality that a table would be feasible?
Can you point me to the rules? We list both open source and commercial software, for example here: Compilers — Fortran Programming Language, and we should continue doing so in my opinion.
This came out of a initiative by Joe Wallwork to try to create a single one-stop shop for Fortran resources. The decision was made to contribute to Fortran-lang.org. The site shows:
The fortran-lang package index is community-maintained and lists open source Fortran-related projects. This includes large-scale scientific applications,function libraries, Fortran interfaces, and developer tools.
See here for how to get your project listed.
Use the box above to search the package index by keyword, package name, or author username."
We were advised that the site cannot index commercial or non-open-source tools even though they may be free for academic use. This frustrates the ambition to create a one-stop shop in this site. So now we have Fortran-lang.org, @Beliavsky’s list, the Fortran Wiki, and none of them can contain all of the information users might want.
We note that the site does index compilers, some of which are not open-source. I think it also references books which are sold for money. Is it possible to clarify the policies?
There is considerable overlap. John Appleyard and I met by chance at Rutherford-Appleton in the 1990s, discovered each other’s work and tried to separate our priorities. To some extent we succeeded, for example, fpt does not implement spag. But both PlusFort and fpt are powerful linters, re-formatters, layout converters and re-engineering tools. SciTools Understand and, I suspect, Codee (haven’t tried it yet) also replicate some of this.
I agree that Packages should be open-source and preferably FPM, though there are a number of very useful packages which are Fortran-callable, open-source but AFAIK not under FPM.
I am not happy with the “More” tab. On Fortran-lang.org, the top bar containing
“Play Learn Roadmap Compilers Community More Search”
does not display at all on mobile devices (e.g. Firefox on Android). I only found it after a pointer from Joe Wallwork. On Firefox under Linux it is a faint heading, easily missed.
The “More” dropdown only contains “News” and “Packages”, and “News” already has a section on the main page.
May I suggest explicit links on the main page for:
“Compilers Packages Tools Consultants Teaching/Training Books …”
Then, on the Compilers and Tools pages it would be helpful to classify the entries by:
You’re absolutely right — this isn’t ideal. I noticed it before but forgot to open an issue, so thanks for the reminder. Feel free to report issues with the webpage here: GitHub · Where software is built
Note to Discourse readers: we’re short on hands at the moment, so any help is really appreciated. Even just reviewing existing issues and merge requests would be of great help!
This discourse is also called “Fortran open source community”. Given that also closed source tools are discussed here (which is IMHO good), I would suggest to shorten to “Fortran community”.