Quoting Stefano Zacchiroli (2012-12-16 10:08:56) > [ Note: I think -qa would be a better place where to discuss this, as it > is the list where UDD development is happening. Setting M-F-T > accordingly. ] > > On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 12:27:29PM +0800, Paul Wise wrote: > > On Sat, Dec 15, 2012 at 7:03 PM, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:' > > > What is the license of the collection of data? > > > > > > Not the script to collect it (I do notice the GPL in the header of > > > above referenced script), but the *database* of knowledge that is > > > composed. > > > > Most of the stuff is from packages themselves. Debian packages are > > under a number of different licenses, so the answer is "a collection > > of various free (and or non-free) licenses, depending on the > > package". > > If I understand correctly what Jonas is aiming at, that's not (yet) a > satisfactory answer. The license of a collection of a data might very > well be different than the license of the individual pieces of data > itself. I'm not expert on database licensing, but the underlying > intuition here is that there might be a creative effort in assemblying > the data, and that _that_ creative act might be copyrightable and > hence have a license in itself.
You are spot on. And as usual (always?) you have this wonderful skill of expressing amazingly clear - thanks! > In the UDD case, the data collection is destroyed and recreated (with > some minor exception, for the historical tables) at each database > updated pulse. Hence the creativity is mostly captured by the scripts > that do this job. > > Still, it is likely that in the future more and more people interested > in UDD will ask "what is the license of the collection as opposed > to...", as it is a topic of increasing interest together with the "big > data" movement. > > It would be wise hence to have a proper data collection license > associated to the UDD database. A popular one is ODBL > http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/ . I suggest we license the > _collection_ that way, also pointing to the sources creating the > database, which will be under their own license. I fully agree. My previous reference (earlier in the thread than represented above) indeed is part of that "big data" movement: > It is now listed at > http://datahub.io/dataset/debian-package-tracking-system - but > annoyingly it is marked as " License Not Specified". Perhaps the question to ask is more who can decide on a license - the project or those harvesting (i.e. the person(s) writing the actual script)? Regards, - Jonas -- * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt * Tlf.: +45 40843136 Website: http://dr.jones.dk/ [x] quote me freely [ ] ask before reusing [ ] keep private
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