Andrew, Forgive me for being pessimistic, but I do not believe you can publically distribute your code without running the risk of being scooped. Mark's suggestions are very good; however, the safest route would be to withhold distribution of your code until your work is published (or at very least accepted).
Also, I would suggest this argument for convincing your group to use BioJava (disclaimer - I am not a lawyer). Under the LGPL, you are not obligated to release your source code if: (1) you create a "work based on the library" (e.g. direct modifications or additions to the licensed work) but do not distribute it, and (2) you create a "work that uses the library" by dynamically linking your work to the licensed work (see distribution clause #5 of the LGPL: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-2.1.html) If you follow choice #2, you can license and distribute your work under terms of your group's choosing (open or closed, submit it to the BioJava developers for inclusion or not) while gaining the benefit of reusing BioJava. ~Steve -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mark Schreiber Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 4:26 AM To: McSweeny, Andrew J Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Biojava-l] How to share code while protecting copyrights? Hi - My understanding of copyright is that it is yours as soon as you assert that it is your creation. You can simply add a copyright statement to each file containing the code (in the header for example). The reality is that defending copyright is your responsibility. If someone violates it, you have to take them to court or issue a legal letter. You can also put an appropriate license on the code specifying how it can be used. Examples include GPL, LGPL, BSD, Apache License etc. You can pick one of these that best matches your needs. BioJava code is LGPL so if you want your code to go into the BioJava code base you will need to make your code LGPL. It's always a good idea to add @author tags to Java code to ensure appropriate attribution. Finally, if someone steals your code and publishes results before you then you can always make a complaint to the journal editors. If it is a reputable journal, and you have reasonable proof the editor should take some action such as forcing a retraction. You can also make a distribution agreement saying that if someone uses this code they agree not to publish without first consulting you. If you want to make it really water tight, get a lawyer and explain specifically what you want to share and what you want to protect or prevent. - Mark On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 11:41 PM, McSweeny, Andrew J < [email protected]> wrote: > Hi, > > I am working on a project which simulates sexual reproduction in a > population of digital organisms. Their genome is just a contig from hg18. > It's pretty interesting and I can talk more about it in the future.... > > Anyways, how can I share my code for this project without having to worry > that someone else will use it to publish a paper before my group does? > > I'm certain nobody in the open source community would do that, but how do I > convince my group that opening our project to BioJava is a good idea? > > -Andrew > > _______________________________________________ > Biojava-l mailing list - [email protected] > http://lists.open-bio.org/mailman/listinfo/biojava-l > _______________________________________________ Biojava-l mailing list - [email protected] http://lists.open-bio.org/mailman/listinfo/biojava-l _______________________________________________ Biojava-l mailing list - [email protected] http://lists.open-bio.org/mailman/listinfo/biojava-l
