Re: [Obo-human-phenotype] Attempt at defining the HPO license

[Robinson, P. <pet...@ch...>]

I don't have worries about attribution in scientific papers; that seems to work in more or less appropriate ways in my experience at least. I am also comfortable for companies to use the HPO for profit, if they can incorporate it into some good products. I am somewhat more concerned about the situation where a university or company group uses say a very old version of the HPO and claims that it is up to date or that a company changes multiple terms and does not document that the original HPO was used as a basis but that they are using a forked version that they have changed on their own. To be honest, I doubt that it is the kind of thing that can be enforced by laywers anyway, because it is difficult to say what if any the financial damage to the HPO is, and it doesnt seem likely that a company would have much to gain from that kind of policy anyway. So probably it is not a big problem. 
-peter



Dr. med. Peter N. Robinson, MSc.
Institut für Medizinische Genetik
Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin
Augustenburger Platz 1
13353 Berlin
Germany
+4930 450566042
pet...@ch...
http://compbio.charite.de
http://www.human-phenotype-ontology.org
________________________________________
Von: Hilmar Lapp [hl...@ne...]
Gesendet: Dienstag, 9. März 2010 19:59
An: Thinh Nguyen
Cc: Paul Schofield; Robinson, Peter; Alan Ruttenberg; OBO Coordinators; Obo-human-phenotype
Betreff: Re: [Obo-human-phenotype] Attempt at defining the HPO license

On Mar 9, 2010, at 12:39 PM, Thinh Nguyen wrote:

> I think for a community like OBO, providing a clear statement of
> rights--which is what CC0 provides, is very important.

I'd fully agree with that.

> Otherwise, you might have different people contributing under
> different expectations--which would be potentially problematic later
> on.

Yes, and that was actually the main motivation behind my objection to
CC-by. It can create expectations on the side of the ontology
developers about when and how there are going to be cited in
publications that may not be realistic or even possible in a world of
increasing (and possibly recursive) ontology reuse through import and
MIREOT, and integration of ontology-annotated data from multiple
sources.

In that sense, CC-by can also create a barrier to reuse because nobody
wants to willfully violate the restrictions, or subject their users to
the risk of such.

Alan's suggestion at the meeting was to try to write documentation
that narrows down the expectations ontology developers may reasonably
have and which they may not, notwithstanding the provisions of CC-by
if taken strictly. Though I don't think that's not worth trying, it
also strikes me as not so different from using CC0 or another public
domain dedication, while at the same laying out community norms
(rather than legal norms) that users and developers should feel bound
by.

The way we reuse previously published or conducted science and how and
when we attribute or cite it is also governed by community norms, not
legal licenses. It's worked pretty well overall I would say.

        -hilmar
--
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: Hilmar Lapp  -:- Durham, NC -:- informatics.nescent.org :
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