Re: FreeDiams data licensing issue
On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 02:36:07PM +0100, Eric Maeker wrote:
> > I totally miss your point why you want to move free source code to
> > non-free just because it handles some data from there.
> >
> > My suggestion is to keep all the GPLv3 code in main. If you do not like
> > this please explain more verbosely why to make me understand.
> >
> > In addition to this GPLed code try to add a minimum set of free data to
> > enable some basic operation. Could be a package freediams-data-free (or
> > whatever you might like to call it).
> >
> > In non-free you can add a pure data package with an "alternative" set of
> > data and name the package freediams-data-non-free (or similar).
> > Alternatively you can add a FreeDiams function: Download data. You can
> > independently from your code provide a data update which might have the
> > extra advantage of beeing able to update the data independetly from any
> > code (and thus Debian release) which IMHO makes perfect sense. When
> > doing so please make sure to display the according licenses of these data
> > in some way.
>
> This is my point of view, please excuse the repetition.
>
> The FreeMedForms project is the only open source medical project
> that provide a drug-drug interaction (DDI) management. Unfortunatly,
> to this day,
> the data can not distributed freely (as understand by the debian
> social contract).
> So, in the debian world, the project can not provide the DDI feature (in the
> free repository).
So I also need to repeat myself - perhaps in other words: In Debian you
have for instance free media player in main. These can be used to play
non-free content. That's no reason to move the software to non-free
because of this feature. The decision whether a programm can be placed
in main or not depends from the license of its source code not from the
license of the data a user is working with.
> Like all open source project, we have to face code and data misappropriation by
> other commercial (or SaaS) project. These project does not, all, ask us for the
> authorisation of usage. There is a (massive) request of this feature in
> EMR. You have to know that, in France, some commercial EMR do not provide this
> feature (DDI). I feel a bit disappointed by this misappropriation.
I have no idea about these issues but as I layed out in my previous mail
(quoted above) a minimum dataset which proves the functionality of the
code in main would be sufficient. Other data could be provided by other
means (for instance downloadable via web which has additional advantages
regarding updating those data.
> So, after three+ long years of coding, data mining, debugging, I'd
> like to protect
> a part of the work and to protext myself. Cause I'm not a licencing guru. I
> don't know how I can be involved in a copyright affair (as provider of
> the data).
> I do not have neither the time, nor the money to search deep in laws.
Well, this is a totally different thing under what license you are
releasing your code. However, you once released GPLed code into the
wild and people will find it there. You as the copyright owner are free
to put your future work under a different license (whatever reasons
you might have to do so).
> Applications are useful without the DDI feature, but sure they are
> less interesting.
> So I'd like to provide the project applications fully GPLv3 **but**
> the DDI features.
> DDI including: non-free data and code that will be placed under a
> non-free licence.
> Using this configuration, we can provide a fully open source EMR and a non-free,
> no cost DDI plugin (code+data). Like this, the DDI are still available in the
> Linux world and I feel well. If donators help us, we can redefine this non-free
> licencing to GPLv3 later. And/or the DDI data (or other non-free data)
> can be downloadable
> from the apps (using private servers).
I do not knoa your reasons for doing so nor can I guess what business
model you are following but from a Debian Med perspective I would
consider this as a step backwards. While you can perfectly do whatever
you want and there is no need that you handle for the profit of Debian
Med I just want to express my opinion that I'd consider this a sad move.
> My questions are:
> - does anyone can help us with this licencing issue ?
I admit I do not fully understand your intention and thus I can not
help (nor am I a licensing expert and would claim I could help you even
if I would have fully understood your plan).
> - do this configuration (a non-free plugin: code+data, and a free
> package for the full app) can
> suite to the debian social contract ?
If a package needs components in non-free it needs to go into contrib.
> - do I really have to care about anything if a hacker (involved in a law affair
> of copyright) points me as provider of the data ?
This question is too complicated for me.
In any case it reminds me that we need to ask ftpmaster for removal of
the current freemedforms from Debian main because it contains non-free
data.
Kind regards
Andreas.
--
http://fam-tille.de
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