Follow-up Comment #36, task #14528 (project administration): >> ...the REMARK section numbering and format can be important... in many cases intricate, automated, software-specific formatting is used that simple hand edits could easily break > >It's up to you to make sure that the license notices don't break it for your package; since it's only about distribution within relax, I think you don't need to care about any other software.
Actually, relax is always used as part of a toolchain of different softwares. Interoperability with other software is very important. The relax UI includes interoperability functions for 13 different softwares, and support for reading input or writing output text files for over 15 other unique softwares. Here breaking the PDB format will, for example, hinder our support for Xplor-NIH <https://nmr.cit.nih.gov/xplor-nih/>. That is a very undesirable outcome. Hence why placing the copyright or public domain notice in an external README file, rather than breaking the strict PDB format, is really how these PDB files should be dealt with. >> we absolutely cannot identify the original copyright holder. > > >Then I think you should write down the reasons why this file is effectively public domain. We know there are cultures that neglect copyright, but the GNU Project holds the position that using copyrightable material is forbidden unless explicitly allowed. > >However, please feel free to discuss this with the FSF and RMS; they are in the position to make decisions about such corner cases. Sorry for not making it clearer. The Protein Data Bank contents are public domain. All authors agree to waiver their copyright upon submission of their data. From the RCSB PDB Policies & References <https://www.rcsb.org/pdb/static.do?p=general_information/about_pdb/policies_references.html>: ---- *Usage Policies* Data files contained in the PDB archive (ftp://ftp.wwpdb.org) are free of all copyright restrictions and made fully and freely available for both non-commercial and commercial use. Users of the data should attribute the original authors of that structural data. By using the materials available in the PDB archive, the user agrees to abide by the conditions described in the PDB Advisory Notice. ---- Or from within in the Full Privacy Statement <https://www.rcsb.org/pages/privacy-policy>: ---- RCSB PDB operates an open-access portal for public domain information about the 3D shapes of proteins, nucleic acids, and complex assemblies that helps researchers, educators, and students understand fundamental biology, biomedicine, and bioenergy. ---- Or from the Worldwide PDB website <http://www.wwpdb.org/>: ---- *Mission* Ensure open access to public domain experimentally determined structural biology data. ---- This is clearly in the public domain. The PDB files themselves always identify all authors of the corresponding peer-reviewed scientific publication. This publication is a strict requirement for deposited data, and almost all scientific journals conversely require the data to be deposited as public domain to the PDB when publishing a paper about a 3D structure. Hence we do not believe that we need to extract from this already present author list the pre-waiver copyright holders (which is not possible anyway) and credit them. _______________________________________________________ Reply to this item at: <http://savannah.gnu.org/task/?14528> _______________________________________________ Message sent via Savannah https://savannah.gnu.org/