Re: Concerns about OMICTOOLS terms of service..
Hi Jon, hi Charles,
On 26.09.17 09:31, Jon Ison wrote:
> Dear Charles & fellow Debianoids,
>
> Forgive the blatant sales pitch, but you’re very welcome to the bio.tools data (all of it) which is licensed (http://biotools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/license.html) under Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY 4.0), which I hope suits your purposes (please let me know otherwise - I'll consider changing it if necessary).
Sounds all good to me.
> We recently completed a major clean-up of the bio.tools tool IDs, as used in our (hopefully now persistent) URLs, e.g.
>
> https://bio.tools/signalp
> https://bio.tools/api/signalp
The references that were added all left out the "https://bio.tools/"-prefix.
I have noted the many changes you have introduced over the past weeks.
>
> The tool IDs are a URL-safe version of (normally identical to) the supplied tool names, but a big clean-up was necessary, for reasons I’ll spare you here.
:)
Concerning OMICtools, I personally think that as long as no data of ours
flows into their protective setup, I do not mind anything that does not
interfere with what we are doing - live and let live. And Charles is
damn right that we need to ensure that there is no evil interpretation
of any references of ours. I mean - there is chance that us featuring
their IDs would direct search engine results for that ID to our site
instead of theirs.
I propose to wait for a public statement from OMICtools that they are
happy with us showing their IDs next to our packages, even when this has
the gestalt of a catalog of our software.
Best,
Steffen
>
> Take care all
>
> Jon
>
>
> Jon Ison
> Senior Researcher
> High Performance Computing
> DTU Bioinformatics
>
> Technical University of Denmark
> Department of Bio and Health Informatics
> Kemitorvet
> Building 208, Room 013
> 2800 Kgs. Lyngby
> Direct +45 45252477
> jison@bioinformatics.dtu.dk
> www.dtu.dk/english
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Charles Plessy [mailto:plessy@debian.org]
> Sent: 26 September 2017 08:08
> To: debian-med@lists.debian.org
> Subject: Concerns about OMICTOOLS terms of service..
>
> Hello everybody,
>
> it is really great to provide references to metadata repositories that help describing the software that we distribute.
>
> However, I have looked at the terms of use of OMICtools and I have serious concerns:
>
> https://omictools.com/terms-of-use
>
> On one hand, the data seems to be Free:
>
>> The user is authorized to modify, extract (i.e., permanently or
>> temporarily
>> transfer) and reuse all or part of substantial data, in qualitative or
>> quantitative terms, that is contained in the database.
> But on the other hand, the "database" holidng the data is protected:
>
>> The user shall be informed that the database architecture, its
>> presentation, its layout and the method of classification of data
>> listed therein, such as described above, are protected by copyright.
>>
>> The user has a simple right of use on said database with a view to the
>> access, consultation, modification, extraction and reuse of data in
>> the conditions provided in this agreement.
>>
>> Therefore, the user has no right to reproduce, adapt, translate or represent the database.
>>
>> The user also undertakes not to:
>>
>> * reproduce the method of classification of the data used by the Licensor, as
>> well as the database architecture;
>>
>> * modify or create derivative works of the database without the Licensor’s
>> prior written approval;
>>
>> * use the database with the intention of creating a new database reproducing
>> the method of classification of the Licensor and/or the database
>> architecture;
>>
>> * manipulate and/or use the database in a way that could directly or
>> indirectly compete with the Licensor;
> And the database is defined as follows:
>
>> Database: shall mean the database called “OMICTOOLS”, including:
>>
>> * the data. This data is made up of software fact sheets in the scientific
>> fields. These sheets may be freely modified by the users;
>>
>> * the presentation of data and the structure of the database;
>>
>> * the indexing system and the classification of data per phase (by
>> technology, by application and by analysis phase);
>>
>> * the related documentation;
>>
>> * the updates;
>>
>> * the new versions.
> Thus, I am not sure if the OMICtools IDs are part of the data or the database.
> In addition, I am confused, by the fact that a) the data is said to be free, but b) the database is not and c) the data is said to be part of the database.
>
> Points like the non-competition clause above are very broad and makes me think that we should avoid OMICtools. For instance, when we document OMICtoools ids in parallel with SciCrunch RRIDs, we foster interoperation of course, but indirectly it helps people to switch from one to the other, which means that it helps to "compete with the Licensor".
>
> In contrast, for SciCrunch, "All content of the SciCrunch Sites/Services, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License."
>
> Sorry to come a bit late to the party with criticisms. What is your opinion on the matter ?
>
> Have a nice day,
>
> Charles
>
> --
> Charles Plessy
> Debian Med packaging team,
> http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-med
> Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan
>
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