MAIN SITE/CPANEL - FEATURE - Code & data license

[nguillaumin]

We should have a think about what kind of license we should use for the code and the actual content of the database.

The code is probably the easiest one, with either something as "libre" as we can like GPL, or something a bit more permissive like Apache or MIT. This this for an overview of the licenses. This only matters as soon as we open the repository to the public.

The data license is a bit more tricky. I think we need one, because otherwise it's unclear who the data belong to. Is it AtariLegend? Each individual contributor? Or stgraveyard? There are different approaches available, see for example what MusicBrainz is doing. Wikipedia is using CC BY-SA, there are also other alternative like Open Database License used by OpenStreetMap

It's a bit of hassle, but I think it will be necessary to do at some point as the site becomes more and more popular, and especially if we want to provide DB exports and/or an API to access the data. The earliest the better, because in theory re-licensing content should mean contacting each individual contributor to get their agreement...

[stgraveyard]

Hello Nico,

I did think of this a little bit. Because I had the open DB idea for a while, I want to let all contributers know that their creations will also be OPEN for everybody to use (as long as they are credited I think). So for the content, I think it would belong to AtariLegend. The idea I have is that, if at one point in time, and app scrapes the DB of AL with the API and wants to use a review, it may do so, as far as I am concerned anyway. I don't know how everybody else feels about this?

[nguillaumin]

@stgraveyard said:

Regarding the licensing, I will read it in more detail. I like what music brainz does, however, I don't want our stuff to be used commercially I think. What do you guys think?

Personally I wouldn't mind, but I have contributed nearly nothing so my vote doesn't count :wink: . Note that there are nuances in commercial uses, it could be that commercial use is allowed, but attribution is required and the commercial work need to be shared on the same terms (i.e. open too).

I think we should ask all the contributors what they want, if you can CC them on this ticket? I think by default all the contributions belong to them individually, so we'll need to make sure everyone agrees on what the license should be.

A bit more info:

• The Open Database License (ODbl) doesn't seem to support preventing commercial use of the data? https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/summary/
• OpenStreetMap were using a Creative Commons CC BY-SA, but decided to change to ODbl because they thought the CC one was not well suited to protect database-type data (which is what we have). There's more info [here] (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Database_License_Relicensing_FAQ)
• One difficulty with CC I think is that it may require direct attribution to individual of each piece of data (e.g. "Nico contributed this fact X on game Y"), so that if the data is re-used by someone they have to mention the original author. That sounds a bit impractical, and one of the reasons OpenStreetMap moved away from CC
• MusicBrainz is using CC0, which is public domain meaning no restrictions at all, probably not what we want
• If we wanted to use Creative Commons with a non-commercial restrictions, there's CC BY-NC and CC BY-NC-SA. See here
• There's a specific FAQ regarding CC and databases: https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Data

[stgraveyard]

@Brume-AL @MugUK @Marcer75 @stefanjl ... guys, by the end of this month, the content of AL will be downloadable by anyone. We will go open, like other big projects. So people can use AL db in their projects and this way, your work lives on beyond AL. We need a licensing, we need your approval. What do you guys think. Please contribute...

[stsilversurfer]

I think the Open Database License looks perfect. I also have no problems with it being used commercially, I'd be delighted if anyone will use it. :smiley:

[stgraveyard]

Ok Mattias, tbh than it is also all fine by me. Maybe you are right.

[stgraveyard]

Nico, exactly how or where do you think which should add this license text? Somewhere on the contact screen? Let's figure this out and get this over with...

[nguillaumin]

If we want to do that by the book, it will be painful. We should:

• Display the text (or a link to it) on the registration screen
• Have a checkbox the user has to tick to indicate that they accept the license
• For existing users, display a message with the license change when they log in, and have them accept it too (checkbox)
• Send an email to existing users to notify them of the license change, and invite them to log in to accept it
• Delete any content linked to users who don't accept the new license

In theory I think we can't distribute their data if they haven't accepted the new license, as they have a copyright on it. That's how OpenStreetMap did it when they changed license.

In practice, I think it really depends on the risk of AL being sued by someone because we redistributed their reviews / comments. If we think the risk is low, then we can just do the first 2 bullet point, and assume that all users are ok with the new license.

[stgraveyard]

Most of the contributions are 10 years old. Since the new site, nobody has contributed. I would find it very strange if someone would have anything against it. What do you think, Mattias?

[Brume-AL]

I really don't want to see our work commercially used. This is against all rules of the Atari spirit (sharing, free...).

This is all stuffs I've fought since PaCidemo & PaCigame, and I won't change my mind (people downloaded demos and games from the sites and sold them on ebay on CD/DVD - some dudes even leeched the whole sites and burned it with html code + pictures and sold them on CD).

[stgraveyard]

Yes but who is gonna buy that stuff today when we present it for free on the site?? Arent you talking about 20 years ago?

[nguillaumin]

I'm with you, but at the same time I doubt any kind of license will stop those guys anyway.

There can be some benefits of allowing commercial use, for legitimate reasons. For people building retro Atari products for the community, for example of the MiSTer guys wanted to include a games DB, or someone wanting to do something like Amiga Forever but for Atari. These guys are beneficial to the community (I think?).

Choosing a commercial use license would make it easier for these guys, benefiting the community as a whole, while not really making any difference for the leechers.

I'm not trying to convince you, I have no say in the decision :wink: but just to show that there are 2 sides to that coin.

If we don't want commercial use, then we can't use ODbl and will have to use Creative Commons with an NC clause.

[stsilversurfer]

This is all stuffs I've fought since PaCidemo & PaCigame, and I won't change my mind (people downloaded demos and games from the sites and sold them on ebay on CD/DVD - some dudes even leeched the whole sites and burned it with html code + pictures and sold them on CD).

I remember that, it wasn't a pretty thing. If that would happend to AL I would I wouldn't be happy about it.

I guess from that from a practical point of view we can't really stop it either but if we have chosen a commercially permissive licence we have actually said that it would be ok to do it.

There can be some benefits of allowing commercial use, for legitimate reasons. For people building retro Atari products for the community, for example of the MiSTer guys wanted to include a games DB, or someone wanting to do something like Amiga Forever but for Atari. These guys are beneficial to the community (I think?).

This was the type of thing I was thinking about with commercial use or a emulator plugin for Plex that would use the AL API to download game info, boxes, artworks etc.

I don't know what that amiga forever thing is, what is amiga btw?

[nguillaumin]

If we don't want commercial use, then we have two options with Creative Commons:

• CC BY-NC (Attribution-NonCommercial): This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.
• CC BY-NC-SA (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike): This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

It just depends if we want to allow derivative work to be licensed differently or not.

[Brume-AL]

I read your arguments carefully and you're right, it would be a shame to miss MiSTer or similar projects. This is what I wanted to do when I contacted CosmosEx author and offered him to use stonish db / csv file in order to leech directly the menus from the interface of the CosmosEx (the file is ready since 6 or 7 months, but I've forgotten to send him the link... my bad).

On the other side, I'm afraid to scare off potential contributors if they read their work (scan, details, etc.) could be used for a commercial purpose. So, can't we simply declare that the db/screenshots/boxscan are open source, but ask everyone who wants to use them commercially to contact us? Something like "a commercial use of the data of Atari Legend needs Atari Legend's agreement..."?

And yes, we won't avoid guys who try to make some profit from our work (@stgraveyard: there are still some people eBay who sell USB sticks or memory cards full of games - and probably with a huge text file leeched from different websites). That's the part of the 'game', I'm aware of it ;)

[stgraveyard]

Ok, so in conclusion : 1) I guess we need a license/disclaimer page (keeping the stuff Bruno says into account) 2) I would love a monthly backup/download of the graphics folder for People to use

Bruno, I think people would contribute more when they know their stuff will be usable for the whole world.

Any candidates to do these things for the december release? ;)

Happy holidays guys!

[nguillaumin]

We can indeed make an exception to allow separate commercial licensing. In practice I'm not sure how it would work as we would either have to ask permission to each individual contributor, or ask them to relinquish their rights to the AtariLegend entity (but even then, I'm not sure if we would need to create some organization like a non-profit, and I have no idea how that could work internationally...)

Anyway, I took a first stab at it in #396 . It's perhaps not the final text of what we want to say, but it's a starting point. I didn't put an exception to contact for commercial use but we can easily add that later if needed.

[stefanjl]

I approve it :)

[stgraveyard]

@nguillaumin Is this issue ready to be closed now?

[nguillaumin]

I guess we haven't discussed the source code license, but we can do that when we open source the code so we can close this for now.