Re: ODC-By license -- DFSG-compliant?
On 09/19/13 23:59, Nick Oosterhof wrote:
> In the future this /may/ end up in BioSig [1]. But more generally we would like to share neuroimaging data (fMRI, MEEG) collected from human participants and/or phantoms, in the context of cognitive neuroscience .experiments.
>
> [1] http://biosig.sourceforge.net/index.html
[...]
> Thanks. I also subscribed to the debian-legal list.
Should we stop cc'ing?
>>> 2.4 Relationship to Contents in the Database. [...]
>> So I think it will nearly always need another licence to make a package
>> meet DFSG because it does not cover the copyright of the Contents (see 2.2).
>
> Can the Contents be licensed under ODC-By as well, or would that create something circular / recursive?
I think that would create an absurdity, a licence for Contents that says
it does not apply to Contents = no valid licence = all rights reserved.
> [...] If not, what other license would be suitable?
OKFN publish http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/dbcl/1.0/ but I don't
know if any volunteers have reviewed that for debian, I've got to get to
work soon and it would probably be better as its own thread, for
visiblity. Based on my personal experience of Rufus and others at OKFN,
I'd be surprised if one of their licences failed DFSG.
I think sometimes there could be insufficient creativity in the Contents
(so no copyright) and a Public Domain Declaration or CC0 may be best,
depending on the laws where it was created; but I'd strongly suggest
considering MIT/Expat, BSD or GPL, depending on your aims. Some argue
against using them for data, but MIT and BSD aren't limited to programs
and the GPL definition of "Program" is wide enough to cope with anything.
[3.3 multiple licensing]
>> How does multiple-licensing interact with section 4.2.a? Can we
>> distribute under a multiple-licensing ourselves?
>
> I would assume that the Licensor, if they made the Database, is allowed to license the Database under multiple License. Is it correct to interpret the foregoing as that if You receive the same database under multiple licenses, then You are can choose whichever license to use. If you choose to use the ODC-By license, then you are bound by section 4.2.
Yeah, the Licensor can do anything, but that includes things that don't
meet the DFSG. So might this mean that something multiple licensed
could fail DFSG if both licences require us to use only that licence.
I assume BioSig database rights are only under ODC-By, so this problem
doesn't bite yet.
> [...] So the remaining question is, I think, whether Content can be licensed under ODC-By. If not, another question is whether it has to be licensed under another license, and if so, which license would be most appropriate.
No and (as ever) it depends on the aim but I'd prefer one of MIT/BSD/GPL.
Hope that helps,
--
MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op
http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer.
In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/
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