Hi Hervé and Sean, thanks for your help. It will indeed be interesting to hear how other people chose the license, especially for those package that redistribute a dataset not from their lab.
I do have an experimental data package in Bioc, zebrafishRNASeq, but it's an experiment from a collaborator and at the time I didn't pay much attention on which license to use. In this case, I'd like to redistribute data from different labs. I guess I will contact the original authors at least as a courtesy. But I'm still keen to hear opinions on which license(s) is appropriate for experimental data sharing. Best, davide On Thu, Mar 3, 2016 at 12:50 PM Hervé Pagès <hpa...@fredhutch.org> wrote: > Hi Davide, > > On 03/01/2016 02:25 PM, davide risso wrote: > > Dear Bioc developers, > > > > I recently downloaded three publicly available single-cell RNA-seq > datasets > > from the NCBI GEO/SRA repository and created an R package with some > > gene-level summaries (read counts and FPKMs). > > > > I'm currently using the package locally for my own tests, but I'm > thinking > > that this may be a useful resource for the community and thinking of > > sharing it on github and eventually submit it to Bioconductor. > > > > I was not involved in any way with the original studies, and I'm > wondering > > what is the best practice in terms of license / data sharing. Since there > > are many experimental data packages in Bioconductor, I'm guessing that > I'm > > not the first person wondering about this. > > > >>From the NCBI website, I read (quote from > > https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/home/about/policies.shtml): > > Databases of molecular data on the NCBI Web site include such examples as > > nucleotide sequences (GenBank), protein sequences, macromolecular > > structures, molecular variation, gene expression, and mapping data. They > > are designed to provide and encourage access within the scientific > > community to sources of current and comprehensive information. Therefore, > > NCBI itself places no restrictions on the use or distribution of the data > > contained therein. Nor do we accept data when the submitter has requested > > restrictions on reuse or redistribution. However, some submitters of the > > original data (or the country of origin of such data) may claim patent, > > copyright, or other intellectual property rights in all or a portion of > the > > data (that has been submitted). NCBI is not in a position to assess the > > validity of such claims and since there is no transfer of rights from > > submitters to NCBI, NCBI has no rights to transfer to a third party. > > Therefore, NCBI cannot provide comment or unrestricted permission > > concerning the use, copying, or distribution of the information contained > > in the molecular databases. > > > > Should I contact the original authors for permission? Or is the fact that > > the data were publicly shared enough to grant me permission to > redistribute? > > In that case, is there a standard license that I should use? > > > > Thanks for any feedback / thought! > > I don't have much to offer. AFAIK we don't really have guidelines or > recommendations for what license to use for experimental data packages, > except for the usual "make sure you use an appropriate license" advice. > So far it has really been up to each author/maintainer to make sure > they pick up a license that is compatible with the original > license/copyright/patent of the original data they are packaging > and with its redistribution thru the Bioconductor channel. > > FWIW here is a summary of the licenses used by the 276 experimental > data packages currently in BioC devel: > > License Nb of packages > ------------ -------------- > GPL 135 > Artistic-2.0 96 > LGPL 41 > other 4 > > Would be interesting to hear from other developers about this. For > example, how people choose between GPL vs Artistic-2.0? Is one > license typically more appropriate for packaging and redistributing > data that is already publicly available? > > H. > > > > > Best, > > davide > > > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Bioc-devel@r-project.org mailing list > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/bioc-devel > > > > -- > Hervé Pagès > > Program in Computational Biology > Division of Public Health Sciences > Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center > 1100 Fairview Ave. N, M1-B514 > P.O. Box 19024 > Seattle, WA 98109-1024 > > E-mail: hpa...@fredhutch.org > Phone: (206) 667-5791 > Fax: (206) 667-1319 > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] _______________________________________________ Bioc-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/bioc-devel
