[Insight-users] LICENSING of SOURCE CODE in the INSIGHT JOURNAL

[Luis Ibanez]

Hi Dan,


Let me address in isolation one of the interesting points that you
bring up in your email regarding the release of ITK 3.8.


When authors submit to the Insight Journal, they keep the Copyright
of their material (documents, source code, data), and assign to
*everybody* the follow license:


        http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/


which is summarized as:

      You (the reader/downloader) are free to

        * Share - to copy, distribute and transmit the work
        * Remix - to adapt the work

      Under the following conditions

        * Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner
                       specified by the author or licensor (but not
                       in any way that suggests that they endorse
                       you or your use of the work).


     * For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others
       the license terms of this work. The best way to do this is
       with a link to this web page.

     * Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission
       from the copyright holder.

     * Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author's
       moral rights.


The full license, in legal language is available at:

       http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode


--------


To Summarize:

       The source code, and all other material in the Insight Journal,
       is "Open Source" in the sense that you are allowed to copy it,
       redistribute it, create derivative works and distribute them.
       *with the condition* of giving credits to the original authors.

       The source code *is not* Open Source, in the sense that the
       Creative Commons by Attribution License is not a license approved
       by the Open Source Initiative. This license was designed with
       *works of Art* in mind. It has been largely applied to articles
       in Open Access journals, but *it was not designed for software*.


Why the distinction ?

       The mission of the Insight Journal is to share methodologies
       and to enforce the verification of reproducibility. In that
       context, the most important feature is to make sure that the
       authors make available to readers all the material that they
       need in order to verify reproducibility.

       You are currently allowed to download source code from the Insight
       Journal, copy it, distribute it, modify it and distribute it.

       However, the Creative Commons by Attribution License lacks some
       permissions that you will require for "using" the software, and
       for making products that you could sell. That is, the license
       *does not* provide permission for any *Patent Rights* {use, make
       sell, offer for sale, and import}. The reason is that works of
       art *are not Patentable*, and therefore such permissions were not
       required in the Creative Commons by Attribution license.

       Open Source licenses, on the other hand, usually provide
       permission for *both Copyright and Patent Rights*.
       See for example the MIT and BSD licenses.

          http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php
          http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php

       Note the presence of the word "use" and "sell" in the permissions.


       To make this more clear, please note:

       Copyright gives to authors a state-granted monopoly on the
       exclusive rights to:

                * Reproduce (copy)
                * Create derivative works
                * Sell, rent or lease copies
                * Perform public performances
                * Display the work publicly


        Patent rights, give inventors a state-granted monopoly
        that allows them to exclude other from

                * Use
                * Make
                * Sell
                * Offer for sale
                * Import

        embodiments of the invention.



To give a practical example:

    I can go to the Insight Journal, and download a
    paper along with its source code.

    I can make copies of those files, send them as
    attachements to emails, post them on the web,
    put them in shared directories in P2P systems,
    *as long as* I include credits to the authors
    and a mention that the work is under Creative
    Commons by Attribution License.

    I can modify the paper (e.g. add paragraphs,
    add corrections) and distribut it, also with
    the mention that I modified it, and the credits
    to the original authors.

    I *can not* use the software to create an executable
    that I will then run in a computer on a regular basis,
    because there may be Patent rights, that I'm not aware
    of, and for which I do not have permission. I can not
    put that software in a workstation and sell it or
    offer it for sale.


    I can, however, *use* the executable for the purpose of
    verifying if the method actually works, or for the purpose
    of satisfying my personal curiosity. Which falls squarely
    on the mission of the Insight Journal.


    A US Court decision of 1813 stablished a patent
    exemption when the invention is used:

       "merely for [scientific] experiments,
        or for the purpose of ascertaining the
        sufficiency of the machine to produce
        its described effects."

    (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_exemption)


    A later US Court decision (2002) on "Madey v. Duke University"
    restricted the Research Exemption to the case when the
    invention is used only for:

        "amusement, to satisfy idle curiosity,
         or for strictly philosophical inquiry."

http://www.ll.georgetown.edu/federal/judicial/fed/opinions/01opinions/01-1567.html


    This narrow interpretation of the research exception
    to patent rights is still broad enough for allowing
    readers of the Insight Journal to build executables
    out of the source code distributed along with the
    papers, and to use/run these executables on a computer
    for the purpose of verifying the reproducibility of
    the paper.


    You must refrain from using source code from the
    Insight Journal for any application that may
    infringe on potential patent rights.


    Note that when we move source code from the Insight
    Journal into the Insight Toolkit, as part of the
    process we request authors to transfer the copyright
    of the source code to the Insight Software Consortium,
    so that we can distribute the source code under the
    OSI-approved BSD license.




   Please let us know if you have further questions
   regarding licensing and the material that you
   find in the Insight Journal.



    Regards,


       Luis



-------------------
Dan Mueller wrote:
> 
> BTW: Is the code for the Insight Journal open source? Does the Journal
> practice what it preaches? If the code was available it might be
> possible for others (like myself) to make these suggested changes
> (although I am aware this is a slippery slope). Otherwise is there a
> Wiki page describing the process for becoming involved? I notice the
> Admistration/To-Do List is quite long...
> 
> Regards, Dan
>