Software as research data Licenses What are software

Software as research data Licenses

What are software licenses for? • • • Software code is automatically protected by copyright. Without license all rights are with the author. A software license defines the conditions under which software (code) may be used, copied, modified or distributed. It can both facilitate and restrict access to software.

Examples • • • Compare these licenses: GPL-3. 0 https: //choosealicense. com/licenses/gpl-3. 0/ LGPL-3. 0 https: //choosealicense. com/licenses/lgpl-3. 0/ Apache 2. 0 https: //choosealicense. com/licenses/apache-2. 0/ public domain https: //choosealicense. com/licenses/unlicense/

Types of licenses source code closed source open source License for derived Software use associated with costs proprietary software freeware arbitrary permissive e. g. MIT, BSD, Apache. Depending on the type of use, identical or arbitrary weak copyleft e. g. LGPL, MPL identical strong copyleft e. g. GPL, Eu. PL

Compatibility of licenses If software (code) is released under a specific license, this will affect: ● the type of software in which this code can be used (forward compatible downstream), ● or which code can be used by it (Backward compatible Upstream) Aus: Morin A, Urban J, Sliz P (2012). A Quick Guide to Software Licensing for the Scientist-Programmer. PLo. S Comput Biol 8(7): e 1002598. https: //doi. org/10. 1371/journal. pcbi. 1002598

Which license should I choose? • • Maximize dissemination, minimize restrictions => Permissive license Ensure that all derivatives are also open source => Copy-left License Open source for the academic world, earn money in business => Open Source License + paid support contract => Offer multiple licenses (e. g. open source for academic use and proprietary), see e. g. My. SQL Protect source code, maximum control => Proprietary license

Tools and Services • Choose A License: Decision support when choosing a license for your own software https: //choosealicense. com/ • Fossology: Open source toolbox, framework and web application for extracting license information from source code https: //www. fossology. org/ • Fossa: Commercial tool for automatic check of license compatibility, can be integrated into the development process https: //fossa. com/

Exercise • Choose a suitable license for a software developed by you or at your institute • The Choose A License page can help you. • https: //choosealicense. com/ • Also consider whether you need to be compatible with the licenses of the software or libraries you use.

How is a license issued? • • Closed source: through End User License Agreement (EULA), which must be made available to the end user before the contract is concluded. Open source: reference to license in each source document LICENSE, COPYING, license. txt

Exercise • • • You want to publish your software under the following license <Complete license name> Create a text file named LICENSE (UNIX) or license. txt (Windows). Create a short text module to insert into any source file. Use https: //opensource. org/licenses for this.

References • https: //choosealicense. com/ • https: //opensource. org/licenses • Neil Chue Hong and Tim Parkinson. Choosing an open-source licence. Guide from Software Sustainability. Institute. https: //www. software. ac. uk/resources/guides/adopting-open-source-licence • Morin, A. , Urban, J. & Sliz, P. (2012). A quick guide to software licensing for the scientist-programmer. PLo. S Comput Biol, 8. doi: 10. 1371/journal. pcbi. 1002598 • Almeida, D. A. , Murphy, G. C. , Wilson, G. & Hoye, M. (2017). Do Software Developers Understand Open Source Licenses? . Proceedings of the 25 th International Conference on Program Comprehension (p. /pp. 1 --11), Piscataway, NJ, USA: IEEE Press. ISBN: 978 -1 -53860535 -6 • Tuunanen, T. , Koskinen, J. & Kärkkäinen, T. (2009). Automated software license analysis. Automated Software Engineering, 16, 455 -490.