First of all, thanks to CMU for releasing the data. I've no doubt it
will be valuable to people working in the field.
I don't particularly like terms like "lawyerbomb" and "obnoxious
advertising clause", but this merits a response.
People who don't get paid to work on the software they develop, aren't
employed by big universities or companies are understandably concerned
about getting sued -- you can say "but they've never been sued before,
so why should they worry" -- but this isn't really convincing. They can
get frustrated that people make more work for themselves and others.
* Making up your own 'free/open-source' licence:
More work for you, more work for them.
* Choosing an existing tried and tested 'free/open-source' licence:
Less work for you, less work for them.
Furthermore, they can also find it frustrating that a non-profit
organisation would release their work under a licence that is
incompatible with that of over 60% of free software.[1]
Fran
PS. Some of these same issues are reviewed in Ted Pedersen's excellent
2008 article:
http://www.d.umn.edu/~tpederse/Pubs/pedersen-last-word-2008.pdf
=Notes=
1. http://www.blackducksoftware.com/oss/licenses#top20
El dv 22 de 01 de 2010 a les 18:29 -0500, en/na Job M. van Zuijlen va
escriure:
> Some of the verbiage used in this discussion (lawyer bomb...) doesn't
> particularly encourage people to make their data freely available.
> What happened to common sense? I think CMU's initiative should be
> commended.
>
> Job van Zuijlen
>
>
> From: Robert Frederking
> Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 16:32
> To: Francis Tyers
> Cc: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [Mt-list] Public release of Haitian Creole language data
> byCarnegie Mellon
>
>
> I'm not a lawyer, but let me start by stating that out intent was
> simply that re-use included acknowledgement. This was not intended to
> be a splash-screen on every start-up, or making the software pronounce
> our names at the start of every sentence. :-) It only has to be
> "clearly visible" in anyone's source files.
>
> We aren't interested in suing people; we are a non-profit research
> organization. But like the Regents in California, we have a
> responsibility to our sponsors that appropriate credit is given for
> our work. So this is intended to be like the old BSD advertising
> clause, which is generally considered to be clear from a legal point
> of view.
>
> Please use the data however you want; just don't say you originally
> collected it.
>
> Bob
>
> Francis Tyers wrote:
> > [ Sorry in advance for cross posting ]
> >
> > I'm going over this on the debian-legal mailing list (a good place to
> > ask about issues in free/open-source software licensing).
> >
> > There is a question about clause 5 of the licence:
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > ## 5. Any commercial, public or published work that uses this data
> > ##
> > ## must contain a clearly visible acknowledgment as to the ##
> > ## provenance of the data. ##
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > >From debian-legal:
> >
> > My concern is whether, contrary to the favourable interpretation you
> > give, this is intended to act like an obnoxious advertising clause.
> >
> > In other words, what will satisfy “contain” in “contain a clearly
> > visible acknowledgement”? Is it sufficient for the acknowledgement to
> > be “clearly visible” only after inspecting various files in the source
> > code?
> >
> > Or is the copyright holder's intent that the acknowledgement be clearly
> > visible to every recipient, even those who receive a non-source form of
> > the work? The latter would be a non-free restriction, like the
> > obnoxious advertising clause in the older BSD licenses.
> >
> > This looks, as it is currently worded, more like a lawyerbomb now that
> > I consider it. I would appreciate input on this from legally-trained
> > minds.
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Could you confirm if that clause means that the acknowledgement should
> > be _clearly visible_ to _every recipient_ or would it suffice to be
> > visible after inspecting the source code?
> >
> > Thanks for your help in this and best regards,
> >
> > Francis Tyers
> >
> >
> > El dj 21 de 01 de 2010 a les 22:59 -0500, en/na Alon Lavie va escriure:
> >
> > > Hi Francis,
> > >
> > > Thanks for the suggestion, but we were advised to leave the licensing
> > > language as is. Our licensing language is effectively equivalent to the
> > > MIT license.and is unambiguous with respect to releasing the data for
> > > any use (commercial or non-commercial).
> > >
> > > Best regards,
> > >
> > > - *Alon*
> > >
> > > Francis Tyers wrote:
> > >
> > > > El dj 21 de 01 de 2010 a les 14:49 -0500, en/na Robert Frederking va
> > > > escriure:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > The Language Technologies Institute (LTI) of Carnegie Mellon
> > > > > University's
> > > > > School of Computer Science (CMU SCS) is making publicly available the
> > > > > Haitian Creole spoken and text data that we have collected or
> > > > > produced. We
> > > > > are providing this data with minimal restrictions in order to
> > > > > allow others to develop language technology for Haiti, in parallel
> > > > > with our
> > > > > own efforts to help with this crisis. Since organizing the data in a
> > > > > useful
> > > > > fashion is not instantaneous, and more text data is currently being
> > > > > produced
> > > > > by collaborators, we will be publishing the data incrementally on the
> > > > > web,
> > > > > as it becomes available. To access the currently available data,
> > > > > please
> > > > > visit the website at http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/haitian/
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > Would you consider also dual/triple licensing the data under an existing
> > > > free software licence, such as the MIT licence[1] or the GNU GPL[2] ?
> > > > This way it could be combined with existing data under these licences
> > > > (e.g. the majority of free/open-source software) and researchers and
> > > > developers don't need to hire legal advice to determine if they can
> > > > combine their work with yours.
> > > >
> > > > Best regards,
> > > >
> > > > Fran
> > > >
> > > > 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Licence#License_terms
> > > > 2. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Mt-list mailing list
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
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