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

[Bill Lorensen]

Luis,

Although your response is interesting and informative, I believe that
you mis-interpreted Dan's question. I believe that Dan asked, is the
code that manages the Insight Journal submissions and web site open
source. He was not asking about submissions to the Insight Journal.

Is my interpretation correct Dan? If it is, then the question still
stands unanswered.

Bill

On Sat, May 24, 2008 at 9:32 AM, Luis Ibanez <luis.ibanez at kitware.com> wrote:
>
>
> 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
>>
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