Talis Developer Network - Proposing a licence for data - Comments

GFDL Doesn't Apply To Data

Ian Davis — Sun, 21 May 2006 18:05:00 +0100

As mentioned before, we encourage people to us the GNU Free Documentation License or a Creative Commons license for any copyrightable work. The Talis Community License does not apply to copyrightable works so cannot be used for creative works such as prose, books, reviews or web pages.

Similarly you can only apply the GFLD to a work that falls under copyright law which exludes data such as lists of ISBNs. From section 1 of the license:

This License applies to any manual or other work, in any medium, that contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it can be distributed under the terms of this License.

For data sets there is no copyright holder and so this license cannot be used.

The following FAQ from the Creative Commons site may be helpful as might be this page from the UK government site on database right.

GFDL does the job

Jim White — Sun, 21 May 2006 08:29:55 +0100

I've reread your draft and strongly recommend you go with GFDL. I don't believe it offers the protection you think it does. And even if it works in the EU, it is unlikely to be useful elsewhere. An unenforceable license can lead directly to loss of the protection you sought.

Each of the activities that could establish database right are explicitly covered by GFDL: 4 - Modified Version, 5 - Combining, 6 - Collection. Those actions are permitted as long as the result is distributed under GFDL.

GFDL also addresses the issue of format of the data and prohibits conversion to a proprietary form unless the original is also made available. That is very important protection.

The proliferation of licenses has become an impediment to freedom to share and reuse of innovation. If works under your license cannot be combined with other works (and it is not obvious that they can be), then their usefullness is greatly diminished.

Please consult with the experts at www.fsf.org, www.opensource.org, and www.eff.org.

Copyright vs. Database Right

Ian Davis — Thu, 11 May 2006 15:13:36 +0100

Thanks for the reference. We have looked closely at GFDL and also the Creative Commons and would recommend use of any of those licences for copyrightable material such as documents. However, the Talis Community Licence is designed to protect uncopyrightable data representing facts. We plan to use a different right called database right to ensure that contributed data remains available to everyone.

GFDL

Jim White — Thu, 11 May 2006 04:58:38 +0100

I believe the license you're looking for is the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL).

http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html

A good example of it's effectiveness in this type of application is that it is the license for Wikipedia.

That no license is "perfect" is illustrated in the Wikipedia article on GFDL.

Proposing a licence for data

Paul Miller — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 13:03:17 +0100

As contributions to the Talis Platform continue to grow, and an ever-increasing body of those interested in consuming Platform services come forward, it is important that we agree a licence with the flexibility and permissiveness to allow the use and reuse that we all want to see, whilst protecting the reasonable rights of those sharing their data in the first place. Believing that existing licence models do not adequately address the particular issues associated with contributing and consuming data, we are proposing a new Licence and would welcome your thoughts on it and ways in which it might be applied.