[MITgcm-devel] [MITgcm-support] MITgcm license

[Chris Hill]

Not really, but if there is interest in an unconventional approach
maybe we could try it! I think it is probably not a great idea though.

More seriously - if anyone wants to put forward
ideas or thoughts that would be great. The copyright stuff
is interesting. My understanding is it reflects the interests
of publishers lawyers (RIAA, Elsevier etc...) and "the
establishment" more than the will of "the people". There are
some famous Columbia law school lectures on this I think. I
don't stay up at night worrying about law suits. I do worry a
little about stirring up lawyers if we do decide to handle
this in a seriously conventional way.

Things in this realm that I do worry about are
making sure that people get adequate credit, DOIs
etc...

But mostly I am more losing sleep over tuning up and
speeding up 1-2km global calculations, internal
waves, calculating eddy fluxes, how we should
engage with CESM, maintaining adequate funding and
infrastructure to do all the things we could do etc....

For better or worse MIT does not have a law school.

Chris
On Tue, May 10, 2016 at 10:31 PM, Ryan Abernathey
<ryan.abernathey at gmail.com> wrote:
> Chris,
>
> Are you proposing the WTFPL for MITgcm? I would be in favor--it seems like
> an appropriately permissive license and in keeping with our general
> disregard for the norms of polite behavior.
>
> This article provides a very informative discussion of why a license is
> important:
> http://www.astrobetter.com/blog/2014/03/10/the-whys-and-hows-of-licensing-scientific-code/
>
> Another good choice, and an obvious one, is the MIT license.
> http://choosealicense.com/licenses/mit/
>
> -Ryan
>
> On Tue, May 10, 2016 at 5:22 PM, Chris Hill <cnh at mit.edu> wrote:
>>
>>  There is an interesting thread on this topic here
>>
>>   http://www.wtfpl.net/about/
>>  and here
>>   http://www.wtfpl.net/faq/
>>
>>
>> On Tue, May 10, 2016 at 5:18 PM, Ryan Abernathey
>> <ryan.abernathey at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > On Tue, May 10, 2016 at 5:14 PM, Dimitris Menemenlis
>> > <dmenemenlis at gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >>
>> >> you are welcome to use the MITgcm free of charge, as long as you
>> >> purchase
>> >> a beer per successful compilation for MITgcm developers :-)
>> >
>> >
>> > Clearly this has always been the de-facto license policy!
>> >
>> > But really, is there nothing more official? I know many of the
>> > developers
>> > are strong advocates of open source. It seems strange not to clearly
>> > document the license of such a big project as MITgcm.
>> >
>> >>
>> >> (you would of course be included in the developers list and so would
>> >> benefit from some of the beer!)
>> >>
>> >> On May 10, 2016, at 2:01 PM, Ryan Abernathey
>> >> <ryan.abernathey at gmail.com>
>> >> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> What is the software license for MITgcm?
>> >>
>> >> I found at least three support emails asking the question
>> >> http://mitgcm.org/pipermail/mitgcm-support/2012-January/007613.html
>> >> http://mitgcm.org/pipermail/mitgcm-support/2009-November/006334.html
>> >> http://mitgcm.org/pipermail/mitgcm-support/2005-November/003591.html
>> >>
>> >> But no replies. Neither is there any license information in the source
>> >> directory.
>> >>
>> >> Could someone please resolve this issue? I want to know the license
>> >> information for a review paper I am involved with.
>> >>
>> >> Best,
>> >> Ryan
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> _______________________________________________
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>> >> MITgcm-devel at mitgcm.org
>> >> http://mitgcm.org/mailman/listinfo/mitgcm-devel
>> >>
>> >
>> >
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>> >
>>
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>
>
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