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

Wed May 11 09:03:07 EDT 2016

Yes, I know everyone is busy with real science, and in comparison this
seems frivolous. I certainly don't wish to waste anyone's time with silly
legal stuff. But you must admit that it is strange that such a mature
software project does not have a license.

This doesn't have to be complicated. I propose we adopt the MIT license and
be done with it. Simply create a LICENSE.txt file in the root directory of
the project and paste in the following text.

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2016 MITgcm Developers

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to
deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING
FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN
THE
SOFTWARE.

On Wed, May 11, 2016 at 8:48 AM, Chris Hill <cnh at mit.edu> wrote:

> 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
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> _______________________________________________
> >> >> MITgcm-devel mailing list
> >> >> MITgcm-devel at mitgcm.org
> >> >> http://mitgcm.org/mailman/listinfo/mitgcm-devel
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > _______________________________________________
> >> > MITgcm-devel mailing list
> >> > MITgcm-devel at mitgcm.org
> >> > http://mitgcm.org/mailman/listinfo/mitgcm-devel
> >> >
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> MITgcm-devel mailing list
> >> MITgcm-devel at mitgcm.org
> >> http://mitgcm.org/mailman/listinfo/mitgcm-devel
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > MITgcm-devel mailing list
> > MITgcm-devel at mitgcm.org
> > http://mitgcm.org/mailman/listinfo/mitgcm-devel
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> MITgcm-devel mailing list
> MITgcm-devel at mitgcm.org
> http://mitgcm.org/mailman/listinfo/mitgcm-devel
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mitgcm.org/pipermail/mitgcm-devel/attachments/20160511/8f47b7e9/attachment.htm>