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Re: [Help-gsl] absence of warranty
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From: |
John D Lamb |
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Subject: |
Re: [Help-gsl] absence of warranty |
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Date: |
Wed, 25 Sep 2013 09:18:30 +0100 |
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User-agent: |
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:24.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/24.0 |
On 25/09/13 09:02, the wrote:
> Hello
> Does absence of warranty mean that I can't trust results derived with
> the help of gsl?
No. You will find the same absence of warranty on almost any software,
including, for example, Microsoft Excel.
> Do I have to read the source code first to determine if the library
> does what it is expected to do?
No. But you can read the source code if the library does not do what you
expected it to do. This is a big benefit over closed-source software. If
GSL doesn’t work you can fix it. If closed-source software doesn’t work
you can’t.
> Does this all mean that if I'm not willing to read the source I am not
> able to use this library to get trustworthy scientific results?
No. The results will nearly always be trustworthy, as with any good
software. When I use GSL I seldom check the source code. But I do test
the results against other independently-written software. The benefit of
GSL is that if there is a discrepancy, I can check the source code.
--
John D Lamb