License for HYCOM data

[Kurt Schwehr]

Hi all,

This is a tricky topic, but I thought I'd bring it up again.  Here, I'm not considering the source code.

I'm trying to improve the catalog entries for Earth Engine.  We are using STAC for the catalog entries.  In STAC, there is a license field for a SPDX license code.  Would it be possible for you to pick a license code so that we can replace the "proprietary" with something that more clearly represents public domain for these?

• https://developers.google.com/earth-engine/datasets/tags/hycom
• https://radiantearth.github.io/stac-browser/#/external/earthengine-stac.storage.googleapis.com/catalog/HYCOM/catalog.json

The two most common ways to declare public domain internationally are CC0-1.0 and PDDL-1.0.  Federal Enterprise Data Resources suggests CC-1.0.

See:

• https://spdx.org/licenses/
• https://resources.data.gov/open-licenses/

Thanks for considering the topic!

Sincerely,

-kurt

Engineer on Google Earth Engine

BTW, HYCOM is one of my favorite datasets in Earth Engine, but I know I am biased :)

https://code.earthengine.google.com/b475a38642624aca72fecafaa3f311ab

[Alan Wallcraft]

The Navy datasets we make available are provided under DOD Distribution A.

This is often listed as "Approved for Public Release; Distribution Unlimited".

DOD Instruction 5230.24 says: "... may be made available or sold to the public and foreign nationals, companies, and governments, including adversary governments, and may be exported."

I can't find any DOD statement on which licensees are compatible with Distribution A, and without such guidance we can't pick a license code.

Alan.

[Kurt Schwehr]

Thanks Alan!

Any idea who at the Navy / DOD I could follow up with?

-kurt

[Alan Wallcraft]

I have no idea who to ask at Navy or DOD.

This issue is that Distribution A isn't a license.  I think we probably could apply Public Domain Mark 1.0 (cc-pdm-1.0) to the datasets, but SPDX says that this also isn't a license and so is covered by Legal Team/Decisions/Dealing with Public Domain within SPDX Files.

Alan.

[Kurt Schwehr]

Hi Alan,

I'll see if I can track down the correct folks to talk to.  Thanks for finding spdx issue #988!

-kurt