License on the DwC-MIxS mapping

[raissameyer]

Before concluding the work of the DwC-MIxS TG, we have to decide on a license for our mapping outputs.

Potential licenses:

• CC BY This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.
• CC BY-SA This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.
• CC BY-NC-SA This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.
• The GNU General Public License Permissions of this are conditioned on making available complete source code of licensed works and modifications, which include larger works using a licensed work, under the same license. Copyright and license notices must be preserved. Contributors provide an express grant of patent rights. When a modified version is used to provide a service over a network, the complete source code of the modified version must be made available.

Please add preferences or further considerations in this thread.

[only1chunts]

why not CC0?

[jmacklin]

This is interesting, Raissa. Do we consider the mappings documentation or code as this will determine what kind of license makes sense. I am not entirely sure what the scope of "the mappings" includes so I think we need to be quite specific about this. If this is documentation then I think CC0 would be most appropriate as there is no copyright as I understand it and attribution can still be made as part of a best practice that we can put in our documentation somewhere. If we consider the mappings code then the GPL license would be appropriate.

[tucotuco]

I prefer the most open license possible, or the CC0 waiver.

On 11:08, Fri, Jun 18, 2021 James Macklin @.*** wrote:

This is interesting, Raissa. Do we consider the mappings documentation or code as this will determine what kind of license makes sense. I am not entirely sure what the scope of "the mappings" includes so I think we need to be quite specific about this. If this is documentation then I think CC0 would be most appropriate as there is no copyright as I understand it and attribution can still be made as part of a best practice that we can put in our documentation somewhere. If we consider the mappings code then the GPL license would be appropriate.

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[raissameyer]

Thanks for your input, I've taken a closer look into what you propose.

why not CC0?

If this is documentation then I think CC0 would be most appropriate as there is no copyright as I understand it and attribution can still be made as part of a best practice that we can put in our documentation somewhere.

I prefer the most open license possible, or the CC0 waiver.

With CC0 I see the issue, that while people could acknowledge the provenance as is the recommended best practice, it won’t be guaranteed. Thus, to ensure that the provenance chain of this mapping is secured, I would prefer the CC-BY license.

If we consider the mappings code then the GPL license would be appropriate.

I think that GPL (and CC-(NC-)SA) might even be too restrictive, as it might restrict commercial use through the viral clause of the license (which could potentially lead to de-standardisation). As we would like to encourage the re-use of this mapping, a more open license, such as CC-BY, would again be my preferred choice.

[tucotuco]

With CC0 I see the issue, that while people could acknowledge the provenance as is the recommended best practice, it won’t be guaranteed. Thus, to ensure that the provenance chain of this mapping is secured, I would prefer the CC-BY license.

The license does not guarantee anything, it only supports a cause for action if it is violated. Nevertheless, it may be true that provenance is more likely to be respected with the attribution license.

If we consider the mappings code then the GPL license would be appropriate.

I think that GPL (and CC-(NC-)SA) might even be too restrictive, as it might restrict commercial use through the viral clause of the license (which could potentially lead to de-standardisation). As we would like to encourage the re-use of this mapping, a more open license, such as CC-BY, would again be my preferred choice.

That seems reasonable to me.

[timrobertson100]

There is an ongoing discussion on https://github.com/tdwg/exec/issues/65 (which is not visible to most) where the TDWG executive is discussing policy for all TDWG output. I anticipate the TDWG executive will provide guidance on this topic.

[raissameyer]

Output from the last two meetings: Following expected guidance from TDWG and GSC, and to be as open as possible, we have decided on CC-0.