On Fri, 2003-09-26 at 22:41, Thomas Beale wrote: > Tim Churches wrote: > > >Would it be possible to license the material, with the exception of the > >validator software and the lex/yacc files under a formal open source > >documentation license, such as The GNU Free Documentation license - see > >http://www.fsf.org/licenses/licenses.html#FDL - or one of the Creative > >Commons licenses - see http://creativecommons.org/license/ and place a > >message in each document pointing to the chosen license. Doing this > >provides better protection for everyone - both authors and users - than > >the above note in a README file. > > > > > The licencing that I think will occur will be as follows: > > ADL language definition document + language production rules (a bit more > precisely produced than the ones I have included in this package) - > copyright to openEHR. The conditions of use are included below (and are > very open as you can see). This copyright description was developed by > the legal group of University College London; hopefully it is acceptable > to all prospective users.
It is much better to be as explicit and repetitive as possible (i.e. put your licensing arrangements or clear references to or summaries of them everywhere you can, including as headers in every file. > > The software will probably remain copyright to Ocean. The licence will > most likely be the current openEHR licence devised in Australia, but > legal people will still need to check this. That licence is a Mozilla > clone (whcih guarantees it is automatically accepted as a valid OS > licence). There was some discussion about considering a modified GPL as > well - I have to admit I am not quite up to date on this. I have also > realised that the openEHR licence is not on the website. So - there are > a few details which we need to clarify. There is still a discussion > going on abotu dual-licencing as well. Yes, the Mozilla license allows proprietary system vendors to write wrappers with their own API around your code, without having to release the wrapper (and hence their internal APIs). Of course, any changes to your code they must release (if they plan on distribution to third parties, that is). However, the Mozilla license is suposedly incompatible with the GPL - the solution is to allow dual licensing, with the GPL as the alternative license. people wanting to combine openEHR code with other GPLed code can chose the GPL license, whereas others (e.g. commercial vendors wishing to write interfaces to openEHR code) will probably chose the Mozilla license. And of course openEHR can still enter into separate commercial licensing agreements with commercial vendors for the code (which openEHR has written, but not code contributed under the Mozilla or GPL licenses unless the authors of the contributions agree to such commercial licensing, or unless they sign over their copyright to openEHR - you need to be explicit about this when accepting contributed code into the main openEHR codebase). > > Essnetially, everything will be as open as possible, with strong > copyright protection (this is to protect the openEHR community from > corporate or other appropriation & msuse of materials). No complaints there. Use copyright to the maximum extent possible. > > I realise that I forgot to include the link to the current licence at > openEHR (see URL in copyright statement below) - this is the full > wording of the licence for documentation - it will be included next > version. The software won't be released for a while simply because we > need enough time to clean it up, document it well enough that when it is > released, we do not drown in a barrage of email about "how does > work/what does htis mean" etc. However, I don't mind releasing it to > interested individuals who promise not to flood us too much! Just a > matter of resources, as I'm sure everyone can understand. A few more comments below. > > Hope this helps. There will be a number of announcements in the next few > weeks, which will clear up various things, includiing licence details. > > - thomas beale > > > > ----------------------- > > ? Copyright /open/EHR Foundation 2001 - 2003 > > All Rights Reserved > > 1. This document is protected by copyright and/or database right > throughout the world and is owned by the /open/EHR Foundation. > > 2. You may read and print the document for private, non-commercial > use. I think that is already problematic. You are saying that "commercial" people/entities cannot even read the document? presumably they will be able to buy identical copies which they can read? Also, what is "private, non-commercial use" - the comma implies a logical AND in legal terms, I understand. If I am employed in a publicly-funded organisation (which would presumably be "public, non-commercial use"), I can't read the document? Huh? However the biggest problem is the attempt to distinguish between "commercial" and "private"/"non-commercial". My understanding from those with experience in such matters is that such distinctions are fraught with difficulties and future court cases. The distinction between academe and business is totally blurred in the US, and increasingly so in other countries. In some US universities, they even get the best and brightest undergraduates to work on commercial R&D projects! I won't go on, but almost every time you examine instances of the commercial/non-commercial distinction you become mired in if, buts and grey areas. My advice is don't go there. Much better to let all god's children read your documents - again, I refer you to the various Creative Commons licenses. > > 3. You may use this document (in whole or in part) for the purposes > of making presentations and education, so long as such purposes are > non-commercial and are designed to comment on, further the goals of, or > inform third parties about, /open/EHR. So can the documents be presented for discussion by a third party at a commercially-organised, for-profit health informatics conference in which speakers are paid fees? > > 4. You must not alter, modify, add to or delete anything from the > document you use (except as is permitted in paragraphs 2 and 3 above). > > 5. You shall, in any use of this document, include an > acknowledgement in the form: > > "? Copyright /open/EHR Foundation 2001-2003. All rights reserved. > www.openEHR.org" No problems with any of these. > > 6. This document is being provided as a service to the academic > community and on a non-commercial basis. Accordingly, to the fullest > extent permitted under applicable law, the /open/EHR Foundation accepts > no liability and offers no warranties in relation to the materials and > documentation and their content. The "Accordingly" is unnecessary - the second assertion is not a legal consequence of the first. > > 7. If you wish to commercialise, license, sell, distribute, use or > otherwise copy the materials and documents on this site other than as > provided for in paragraphs 1 to 6 above, you must comply with the terms > and conditions of the /open/EHR Free Commercial Use Licence, or enter > into a separate written agreement with /open/EHR Foundation covering > such activities. The terms and conditions of the /open/EHR Free > Commercial Use Licence can be found at > http://www.openehr.org/free_commercial_use.htm No problems with the thrust of this, only with the attempt at commercial/non-commercial distinction - you are setting yourselves up to fail in that endeavour. Better to have one set of rules for everyone. I won't comment in detail on the free commercial license - the intent is fine, but the wording seems problematic to my legally-lay eyes. Licensing of openEHR intellectual property is entirely your perogative, but it is always good practice in law as in medicine to seek a range of learned opinions about critical matters. Thus, I urge you to seek another legal opinion on your licensing arrangements. I know its a pain but it ends up being very important. Can I recommend Mr Brendon Scott, a Sydney-based lawyer who specialises in open source and other IT licensing issues - he has a background in both law and maths/comp science. His web site is at http://members.optushome.com.au/brendanscott/ -- Tim C PGP/GnuPG Key 1024D/EAF993D0 available from keyservers everywhere or at http://members.optushome.com.au/tchur/pubkey.asc Key fingerprint = 8C22 BF76 33BA B3B5 1D5B EB37 7891 46A9 EAF9 93D0 -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: <http://lists.openehr.org/mailman/private/openehr-technical_lists.openehr.org/attachments/20030927/2b6c0d71/attachment.asc>
