Software license/open source

[mzur]

We would like to have a software license for BIIGLE that allows us to give the code away in student projects. All students have to comply with (sign) the license and are not allowed to use the code in private or commercial projects other than BIIGLE.

As this needs to be approved by all BIIGLE stakeholders, this might take some time. But maybe we can even agree to some of the licenses suggested by GitHub?

[mzur]

Even better would be to make BIIGLE open source. The open issues for new features stack up and have a low chance of being implemented, considering the new workload for MiningImpact2 features. With open source, other BIIGLE users could contribute and implement features that they would like to have themselves.

Find out if this is possible and from whom we need approval to make BIIGLE open source.

[mzur]

Add a link to the GitHub organization to the landing page once BIIGLE is open source (biigle/community-scripts#1).

[mzur]

To do once we have an open source license:

• [x] Create a new template repository for new modules that also includes the correct license. Mark it as "template repository" in GitHub.
• [x] Add a link to this organization to the biigle.de landing page. Maybe in the same row than "BIIGLE manual", "BIIGLE paper", etc. with a "Code on GitHub" link.
• [x] Review all readmes and installation instructions. Update and complete them where necessary.
• [x] Add the LICENSE file to biigle/core and all repositories of modules and -distribution configurations. Also add the license to composer.json and package.json files. Make the repositories public. Do not publish the production repositories.
• [x] Publish all modules on Packagist.
• [x] Update distribution and production repositories to install modules from Packagist.
• [x] Remove collaborators from now public repositories.
• [x] Make the priorities project board public

Optional:

• [x] Add DEVELOPING and CONTRIBUTING to biigle/core.
• [x] Set up CI for biigle/core (and all modules). Use it for tests, coding style and Docker image builds (?). This can be done with GitHub Actions.
• [x] Add wikis to biigle/distribution and biigle/gpus-distribution (based on biigle.de and gpus.biigle.de).

[mzur]

What about the distribution repositories? If we license them as GPL, users wouldn't be able to use them "privately". Maybe we use MIT for those?

[mzur]

I added an action that runs the tests in this repository. I'll investigate if individual modules can be tested as well. This issue is resolved.