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LisbonLicensingDiscussion
Moderator: WoodleyPackard
Scribe: [wiki:JeffGood Jeff Good]
The purpose of this discussion was to discuss what decisions Delph-In needs to make with respect to software and documentation licenses.
Many of the projects affiliated with Delph-In have already adopted licenses of one sort or another. Some have no license. This is summarized here:
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[wiki:PetTop PET], [wiki:HeartofgoldTop Heart of Gold], and [wiki:ItsdbTop Itsdb] are all licensed under the [http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lesser.html GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)]
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The [wiki:LkbTop LKB], ERG, and the [wiki:MatrixTop Matrix] are all licensed under the [http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php MIT license]
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Hinoki and the German Grammar are closed
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The Delph-In wiki, the Norwegian Grammar, and the Modern Greek Grammar are not currently under any specific license
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The group was unsure of the licenses used in tsdb and [http://yz-windows.sourceforge.net/ YZ Windows] (which is used in [wiki:LkbLui LUI])
It was suggested that in choosing a license, resource creators consider at least these three aspects of licensing:
- Attribution: Who must be cited when a Delph-In resource is used by another project (either a project which is part of Delph-In or not)? An open question is whether or not the Delph-In name should be encouraged as being used in appropriate attribution of Delph-In resources.
- Sharing: If a resource is to be distributed using an open source license, do the resource creators also want to stipulate that any new resources using that resource also be open source?
- Usage: Are there different requirements for commercial versus non-commerical use of the resource?
Delph-In has not adopted any specific policies for any of these three aspects of licensing. As discussed below, the current consensus is that Delph-In should leave most licensing decisions up to those working on the individual Delph-In projects.
All of the discussion in this section should be prefaced by the disclaimer that no one participating was a lawyer and, therefore, none of the comments or advice given here should be understood to be completely accurate. Only a lawyer can give completely competent advice in the area of licensing. More information on open source licensing can be found in the [http://www.opensource.org/ Open Source Initiative] web site.
A summary of different software licenses, including documentation licenses, can be found on the [http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html GNU Project's software licensing page].
For projects where open source licenses are a possibility, it was discussed that the [http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html GNU General Public License (GPL)] was probably not ideal for many Delph-In projects since it requires any software using a library licensed under the GPL to also be open source. This might be considered too restrictive by corporate sponsors of Delph-In research. The LGPL and MIT licenses adopted by some of the Delph-In projects are free software licenses which do not have this added requirement. (NTT is an example of a corporation which was satisfied with the LGPL but not the GPL.) It was also suggested that the [http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php BSD] license might be appropriate for Delph-In resources. This license allows the source code of a project based on open source software to be closed if major changes are made to it.
Since choosing an appropriate license may be difficult for many Delph-In members, it was suggested that members from projects who have chosen a license discuss why they chose a particular license on the wiki. This discussion may be helpful to projects which have not yet chosen a license. The relevant wiki articles can be linked to from the LicensingChoices page.
There was general agreement that there should not be one required license for all Delph-In resources. Rather, individual projects could choose the license or licenses most appropriate for their needs. Furthermore, since Delph-In is not a legal entity in any sense, Delph-In itself can not license any resources. Delph-In's lack of legal status probably also means it should not adopt a policy of distinguishing between resources licensed for use by Delph-In projects and resources licensed for use by other researchers (though licenses should be open to distinguish between research and commercial uses of Delph-In resources).
However, it was also agreed that Delph-In should adopt the following policies regarding licenses:
- All new Delph-In resources should be required to adopt some license
- Delph-In projects should publicize which licenses apply to their resources
- The number of different licenses adopted by Delph-In projects should be minimized to the extent possible
One of the more pressing concerns with regard to licenses and Delph-In is associating the Delph-In wiki with an appropriate license. One of the [http://creativecommons.org/ Creative Commons] licenses might be appropriate.
AnnCopestake was unanimously approved as the Delph-In member in charge of doing further research on a license for the wiki. She is encouraged to contact those who have already contributed to the wiki in deciding on a license for it.
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