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datasets / publicbodies

A database of public bodies such as government departments, ministries etc.
http://publicbodies.org
MIT License
63 stars 26 forks source link

Specify source code license #64

Closed augusto-herrmann closed 3 years ago

augusto-herrmann commented 10 years ago

Is the license for the source code of this project (not the data, as that is a separate issue) specified somewhere? I couln't find it. Please include a (preferrably) open source license or, if there is already one, make it more evident (e.g. mention on the README and/or include a COPYING.txt file).

Note: it may be necessary to:

  1. Suggest a propositional license here; and
  2. Obtain consent from each contributor of source code in this project to license his/her work under said proposed license.
rufuspollock commented 10 years ago

@augusto-herrmann good point and suggest we apply the MIT license here. For the data we are already stating the license is PDDL (see datapackage.json) but we could probably make that more explicit.

augusto-herrmann commented 9 years ago

@rgrp considering the software is a web application, a MIT licence would allow for closed forks to be served in software-as-a-service model without contributing back the source code. Is that what we want? Why not Affero, like CKAN?

As for the data, how about using CC-Zero, now that Creative Commons do support licensing data? One advantage over PDDL is that CC-Zero is already translated to some languages and has been analysed in some jurisdictions. Also, we must anyway make the distinction between data that was already put in public domain by legislation, in which case the Public Domain Mark would be appropriate.

rufuspollock commented 9 years ago

@augusto-herrmann the webapp is pretty simple so happy to keep with MIT here (I doubt much benefit in a closed fork).

Given this is data I don't see the benefit of the switch to CC-Zero over PDDL. Note that data in the public domain by legislation may only be public domain in that jurisdiction ...

augusto-herrmann commented 9 years ago

@rgrp if you're not concerned of the webapp being closed in a fork, then neither am I. :)

As for the data, the problem is that you can't assign a licence to something you don't hold copyright for or to something that copyright doesn't apply (such as material set to be in the public domain by law). You can see something similiar with the Creative Commons licences, that is why they have both CC-Zero and the Public Domain Mark as two separate things [1], each appropriate for a different situation.

I suspect with PDDL the same thinking would apply, i.e., you need to ascertain which data is already in the public domain or not otherwise covered by copyright, apply the PDM to that. Otherwise, apply the PDDL.

[1] https://wiki.creativecommons.org/CC0_FAQ#Who_can_use_CC0.3F

rufuspollock commented 9 years ago

@augusto-herrmann no the PDDL is the public domain dedication and license - it is precisely designed to handle the issue you raise :-)

augusto-herrmann commented 9 years ago

@rgrp a careful look at the PDDL text will make it clear that's not the case. However, let's continue this discussion on the mailing list, as it has derailed into something that is out of scope for this issue. :-)