[okfn-discuss] Licensing question from the Open Science Training Initiative pilot

[Vitor Baptista]

I'm no lawyer, but wouldn't this fall into fair use?

I might have misunderstood the question, but it sounded similar as taking a
screenshot of creativecommons.org and posting it online. If the start menu
appears in the bottom, does Microsoft has copyright on this as well?

Interesting question :-)

2013/1/16 Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk>

>
>
> On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 11:18 AM, <sophie.kershaw at keble.oxon.org> wrote:
>
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> As many of you will know, I'm currently running the pilot scheme for my
>> Open Science Training Initiative at the Doctoral Training Centre,
>> University of Oxford.
>
>
> Congratulations! My greetings to the students on the course (this has
> crept up on me!). Unfortunately I am off abroad soon so can't come and look
> in...
>
>
>
>> The students have taken to licensing fantastically well, even though the
>> concept was completely new to *all* of them this time last week. Yesterday
>> I fielded a more specific question from one of the students and was hoping
>> some of the legal eagles on this list might be able to help.
>>
>> The student in question has developed a series of his own routines in
>> Matlab and has drawn them together in a GUI, which he has also designed. He
>> wanted to take a screenshot of this GUI and put it into his report.
>> However, he wasn't sure how this should be licensed. If parts of the
>> Mathworks Matlab interface are visible as part of his screenshot, would
>> this preclude him putting say, a CC-BY license on the resulting image?
>>
>> I don't think there is a generic answer - you will have to read the
> Matlab contract (which I assume the university has signed). It'd unlikely,
> though possible, that this is specific to the licensee so you *may* have to
> contact Oxford U purchasing.
>
> Software Companies often set clauses requiring or preventing this sort of
> thing. For example Gaussian Inc. (whose program solves Schroedinger's
> equation) FORBID the publication of any results. This is because people
> might compare the results with other programs which solve the same problem.
> (BTW solving S's eqn is a billion+ industry).
>
> OTOH I have encountered companies which require the publication of company
> info. If you use the program you are contractually required to tell the
> world and sometimes cite a particularly publication.
>
> This is a compelling argument for the value of F/OSS software where all
> such permissions are granted by (I think) all conformant OSI licences. Is
> it possible to do the same thing in R? This area - how to compute Science
> Openly and reproducibly is what I am working on at present. I can see the
> possibility of tools which can do some of what Matlab can do and do it
> semantically and Openly.
>
>
> --
> Peter Murray-Rust
> Reader in Molecular Informatics
> Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
> University of Cambridge
> CB2 1EW, UK
> +44-1223-763069
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