QUDT licensing & the case for CC0 - was RE: [External] RE: UCUM licensing [was Re: Blank nodes must DIE! ]

QUDT is currently published under a CC-BY 4.0 license. 
https://github.com/qudt/qudt-public-repo/blob/master/LICENSE.md  
https://github.com/qudt/qudt-public-repo/blob/master/schema/SCHEMA_QUDT-v2.1.ttl#L3057  
https://github.com/qudt/qudt-public-repo/blob/master/vocab/unit/VOCAB_QUDT-UNITS-ALL-v2.1.ttl#L19255  etc. 

An additional dcterms:rights entry quotes the UCUM terms where it appeared that they were required
https://github.com/qudt/qudt-public-repo/blob/master/vocab/unit/VOCAB_QUDT-UNITS-ALL-v2.1.ttl#L19256 

That is all pretty clear I think. 

--
FWIW I lean towards CC0 for semantic/linked data resources.  
The URI includes some branding, and if you manage its de-referencing properly then you get implicit attribution anyway, without having to explicitly ask for it in a license. And if anyone copies/re-uses it with changed URIs then these are different things (and a license probably ain't going to deter them anyway). 

Its pretty hard to police this stuff. 

Simon 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Booth <david@dbooth.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, 16 September, 2020 13:11
> To: Graham Klyne <Graham.Klyne@oerc.ox.ac.uk>; Antoine Zimmermann
> <antoine.zimmermann@emse.fr>; Cox, Simon (L&W, Clayton)
> <Simon.Cox@csiro.au>; Abhyankar, Swapna <sabhyank@regenstrief.org>;
> semantic-web@w3.org
> Cc: ClemMcDonald@mail.nih.gov; gunther@pragmaticdata.com
> Subject: Re: [External] RE: UCUM licensing [was Re: Blank nodes must DIE! ]
> 
> On 9/10/20 5:45 AM, Graham Klyne wrote:
> > The very fact that this discussion is happening suggests to me that
> > clearer licensing terms, in particular being explicit about what is
> > permitted to be done without permission, would probably promote wider
> > re-use of this UCUM work.
> 
> Absolutely agree.   This is one of the reasons why it is so important to
> use STANDARD licenses, such as Creative Commons licenses, instead of
> custom licenses.   Custom licenses are a MAJOR impediment to use, no
> matter how permissive they try to be, BECAUSE of the effort required to
> evaluate them, and the uncertainty they create.  Simon's comment is a
> perfect example:
> 
> On 9/15/20 10:59 PM, Cox, Simon (L&W, Clayton) wrote:
>  > Wikidata . . . does not have the resources to evaluate  > the licenses for
> everything that they would like to use,  > so they use a simple criterion: CC0
> OK, anything else,  > they will build their own ontology instead.
> 
> David Booth

Received on Wednesday, 16 September 2020 08:02:50 UTC