GitHub, licenses and open source
Rene Ranzinger
Since I recently had to decide on a license for the source code of our GRITS Toolbox software I spend some time reading/thinking about licenses. I wanted to share two thoughts/conclusions with you:
1. Any type of creative work, including software development, is protected by copyright by default (in most countries). This means, nobody can legally use, copy, modify or distribute that software/code without explicit permission of the creator. One way of granting this permission, without doing it one person at the time, is to use a license. But without a license the default is nobody has permission to the software/code. Which means putting your source code in a public GitHub repository (or other place) without a license does not make it open source. Because nobody has permission to use it (copyright protected). It may be a good idea to go through our repositories and add license information in the LICENSE file or README files. When you create a repository in GitHub it lets you choose a license and takes care of things for you.
2. Many of us are still working with code that was developed under the EUROCarbDB project (Molecular Framework, GlycanBuilder, GlycoWorkbench etc.). It is good to know that all EUROCarb code was developed under LGPL (respectively GPL) license. Which means that any modified or derived code that is used/distributed, has to be (a) shared as well and (b) needs to be shared under the same license.
No call for discussion just something to think about.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,
René