Simon Hettrick
Professor Simon Hettrick is Deputy Director of the Software Sustainability Institute, and a Director of the Southampton Research Software Group.
Software, licensing and open source
By Simon Hettrick
Deputy Director, Software Sustainability Institute
Co-Director, Southampton Research Software Group
25 April 2018 - FPSE Impact Network, University of Southampton @sjh5000 ORCID: 0000-0002-6809-5195
Licence
Simon Hettrick, the University of Edinburgh on behalf of the Software Sustainability Institute.
These slides: https://goo.gl/CoS7ao
Software Sustainability Institute
Southampton Research Software Group
www.software.ac.uk
rsg.soton.ac.uk
These slides: https://goo.gl/CoS7ao
Why is licensing important?
These slides: https://goo.gl/CoS7ao
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You can't use the software
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...or copy it
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...or resell it
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...or change it
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...or distribute it
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And you don't know who's liable if things goes wrong
Without a licence
Common Fallacies
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"I found it on the internet, so I can use it"
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"It's doesn't have a licence, so I can do want I want with it"
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"I can add any licence I choose to my creation"
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"I own the IP of my work"
Why is this important to research?
These slides: https://goo.gl/CoS7ao
...most research relies
on software
Use
software
Fundamental to
results
Develop own code
69%
92%
56%
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1183562
RCUK investment into software-reliant research
Software in UK journal publications
65%
What
software?
I AM NOT A LAWYER
This is my insight into licensing. It doesn't constitute legal advice. If symptoms persist, consult a lawyer.
Quick background
These slides: https://goo.gl/CoS7ao
Source
code
Binary
Human-readable instructions
Computer-readable instructions
Source
code
Binary
User is NOT allowed to view
User often has to purchase
Closed-source licence
Source
code
Binary
User is allowed to view
Various options...
Open-source licence
Note: open source does not mean free!
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You are licensing the copyright related to the software
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Proprietary (or closed) licence
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Restricted licence, e.g. academic or non-commercial
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Open licence
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Copyleft, i.e. "viral licence"
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Permissive licence
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Public domain (not the same as CC0)
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No licence
Some notes on licences
Understanding ownership is vital
You can't licence something you don't own
What do researchers
want to do?
These slides: https://goo.gl/CoS7ao
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Sell their software
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Share their reseach
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Sustain their work
Selling software
Market is
everything
Selling software
- Software as a product: sell the software
- Service model: distribute the software for free, but sell services related to it, e.g. RedHat Linux
- Dual-edition: open-source community edition, closed-source edition with enhanced features, e.g. SugarCRM
- Dual-licensing: distributed under copyleft licence but also available under commercial licence, e.g. MongoDB
- And others...
Sharing research
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Research stakeholders are moving towards all research outputs being open
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Reproducibility and reusability of software is vital to modern research
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Requires a permissive licence, and an open development approach
Sustaining their work
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Open development is not the cure for all sustainability's ills
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Open source is a licence, open development is a philosophy
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Governance is needed to stop a project descending into chaos
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Ground rules are needed for decision making, participation, communication and sharing
It's not difficult to choose a licence
These slides: https://goo.gl/CoS7ao
Making life simple
For a really simple licence, consider the MIT license
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Easy for anyone to reuse software: can do anything but must provide attribution and can't hold you liable
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However software can be redistributed under different terms and modifications don't have to be shared
Don't want your (or your organisation's) name used to promote products or services based on the code?
Consider the BSD 3-Clause license
Making life simple
Want improvements to the code to be shared?
Consider the GNU GPLv3 license
Want improvements to be shared, whilst making "productisation" easier?
Consider the GNU Lesser GPL v3 License
Making life simple
Making life complicated
None of these options suit you?
Consult a lawyer
But how do I actually do it?
- Ensure you own the code
- Choose a licence
- Add the licence text to a file called LICENSE.txt or LICENSE.md in the root directory of your source code repository
- Add basic information about the licence in your README
- (Optionally) add licensing information to your source code files
These slides: https://goo.gl/CoS7ao
General tips
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If using a commercial licence, get it checked by a lawyer
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If using an open-source licence, use a popular OSI-approved one
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Don't write your own licence from scratch!
These slides: https://goo.gl/CoS7ao
Where to get help?
Southampton Research Software Group
- rsg.soton.ac.uk
Research and Innovation services
- www.southampton.ac.uk/research/ris.page
Research Software Community
- rsg.soton.ac.uk/research-software-community
- southampton-rsc-invite.herokuapp.com
Software Carpentry training
- rsg.soton.ac.uk/training
These slides: https://goo.gl/CoS7ao
Further reading
- The Whys and Hows of Licensing Scientific Code
- http://www.astrobetter.com/blog/2014/03/10/the-whys-and-hows-of-licensing-scientific-code/
- A Quick Guide to Software Licensing for the Scientist-Programmer
- http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002598
- The Legal Side to Open Source
- https://opensource.guide/legal/
- The International Free and Open Source Lawbook
- http://ifosslawbook.org/
- qLegal: advice for tech start-ups + entrepreneurs
- http://www.qlegal.qmul.ac.uk/
- tl;dr legal: Software Licenses in Plain English
- https://tldrlegal.com/
- Open Source Software Watch
- http://oss-watch.ac.uk/
These slides: https://goo.gl/CoS7ao
Thanks to Neil Chue Hong for use of his materials:
https://softwaresaved.github.io/software-licensing-workshop/#/
Software, licensing and open source
By Simon Hettrick
Software, licensing and open source
FPSE Impact Network presentation, University of Southampton
