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

Wed Jan 16 19:25:19 UTC 2013

Hello again,

Many thanks for all your replies - I really appreciate the help and will be
passing your advice onto my student tomorrow morning! Knew I could count on
the okfn-discuss list for appropriate assistance :)

Unfortunately though my hosts are constrained to deliver Matlab training
and that was not a decision I had any control over. While of course a fully
open training regime (i.e. using OS software) would be optimal and
preferable (and indeed my first choice), sometimes the situation requires
us to deliver whatever Open training we can if the timetabling space is
available. Certainly in cases where it is the only option, it would seem
expedient to empower students with the knowledge and outlook to push for
greater openness in whatever way they can, rather than not delivering such
training at all.

I know some of you have been in touch directly regarding the possibility of
fusing OSTI with OS programming courses, which is utterly fantastic. If any
of you know of similar niches which OSTI could fill in this way, feel free
to get in touch.

Thanks again everyone!
All the best,

Sophie

On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 4:19 PM, Mr. Puneet Kishor <punk.kish at gmail.com>wrote:

> I'll do some inquiries, but going forward, Peter's advice is strategically
> as well as normatively the best policy -- as long as possible, use only
> free and open source software in a course training young academics in the
> ways of open science -- teaching, practice and preaching are all
> intertwined.
>
> Matlab has many foss alternatives --
>
> * R (and R Studio)
>   http://www.r-project.org and http://www.rstudio.com
> * Perl Data Language
>
> http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/pdl/index.php?title=PDL_for_Matlab_users
> * Scipy/Numpy
>   http://www.scipy.org and www.numpy.org
> * Sage
>   http://www.sagemath.org
>
>
> On Jan 16, 2013, at 4:15 AM, Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > 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.
> >
>
> --
> Puneet Kishor
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