Purpose
The purpose of this group is twofold: on one hand, it aims to delve into the topic of usage licenses (in order to create a brief memorandum) to foster a licensing culture within INAF; on the other hand, it intends to provide guidance on the most appropriate license for the Institute's researchers.
Memorandum on Usage Licenses
Licensing Guidance
Following the study conducted for the memorandum, the working group is convinced that every individual programmer should be able to make their own choice in absolute freedom, either by studying the subject in sufficient depth or simply by reading the prepared memorandum.
That being said, and considering that INAF has its own software development philosophy linked to Open Source, the group is convinced that the only license that can be recommended is the GNU GPL v3. In fact, the objectives of this license are to build upon where others have finished, thus avoiding the waste of resources. It offers maximum freedom for the modification and distribution of software, while prohibiting the subjection of the software (including modifications and improvements) to any exclusive rights. Furthermore, the author retains the right to prevent the distribution of modified code. Ultimately, the GPLv3 license is the one that best guarantees the four fundamental freedoms of software:
- The freedom to run the program for any purpose.
- The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish.
- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others.
- The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others; by doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes.
Useful links
- https://www.software.ac.uk/guide/choosing-open-source-licence
- http://choosealicense.com
- http://choosealicense.com/licenses/
- http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html
Members
- Francesco Bedosti
- Matteo di Carlo
- Andrea Di Dato