Open Source Decision Models

Fri Mar 5 18:06:03 UTC 2010

Somik,

Regardless of whether your spreadsheet is "data" or "code", it probably
qualifies for copyright protection in the US as an expressive literary work.
That is why my licenses (OSL/AFL 3.0) unambiguously refer to an "original
work of authorship," which is the phrase actually used in the US Copyright
Act (17 USC 101 et seq.)

Which is not to say that everything about your spreadsheet is protected by
copyright. Anyone who learns about your spreadsheet may create his own
spreadsheet with similar (even, if necessary, identical) equations in order
to recreate its functions. The process of calculation in your spreadsheet is
almost certainly not copyrightable as such. If, however, there is some small
nugget of expressive content in your spreadsheet, copyright can apply to
that abstracted piece. Any open source copyright license will suffice for
protecting that nugget. Choose a license appropriate for your business
model.

/Larry

Lawrence Rosen

Rosenlaw & Einschlag, a technology law firm (www.rosenlaw.com) 

3001 King Ranch Road, Ukiah, CA 95482

Office: 707-485-1242    Cell: 707-478-8932

Apache Software Foundation, member and counsel (www.apache.org) 

Open Web Foundation, board member (www.openwebfoundation.org) 

Stanford University, Instructor in Law

Author, Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property
Law (Prentice Hall 2004)

From: Somik Raha [mailto:somikr at gmail.com] 
Sent: Friday, March 05, 2010 9:20 AM
To: license-discuss at opensource.org
Subject: Re: Open Source Decision Models

Kevin, Chuck, thank you for your responses. I am familiar with the GPL and
other open-source code licenses and I do plan to distribute the models. To
clarify, a lot of these models are wired up in what many people will not
agree to as "code." Would you call a worksheet with equations in several
cells "code"? Assume for simplicity that all of the equations and supporting
macros have been written by me. Also, all of the model can be ported to Open
Office, but I'd still consider the model (equations+macro code) as the
product of distribution, which does not fit the conventional understanding
of "code."

Chuck - thank you for the pointers about academic patents.

Secondly, at least here in the USA, pure facts / data are not protectable,
but  creative arrangements of the data and the code written for your macros
likely are.  This said, almost all programs consist of a combination of code
and data, and existing licenses should be applicable to your case without
needing to create a new license.

I like the term "creative arrangements of data" - what I'm trying to call a
model is technically a worksheet with such creative arrangements, that make
it easy for a decision-maker to input data, and then computes what the best
decision should be for a particular context that the model applies to. 

I would like to be OSI-compatible, so with Creative-Commons, I might go with
the ShareAlike version (and not add any other restrictions), or perhaps even
dedicate it to the public domain. But I'm thinking that there might be many
like me who have done a lot of creative work on spreadsheets, that is
actually quite helpful for management decisions and goes far beyond data -
this is about capturing a thought process. 

So the key question is, is there any precedent on treating "worksheet
equations+macros+arrangement of cells" as code? If not, what if we define a
"spreadsheet model" as such, and create an OSI-compatible license for such
models?

Thanks in advance for your reflections.

Regards,

Somik

On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 9:18 AM, Somik Raha <somikr at gmail.com> wrote:

Kevin, Chuck, thank you for your responses. I am familiar with the GPL and
other open-source code licenses and I do plan to distribute the models. To
clarify, a lot of these models are wired up in what many people will not
agree to as "code." Would you call a worksheet with equations in several
cells "code"? Assume for simplicity that all of the equations and supporting
macros have been written by me. Also, all of the model can be ported to Open
Office, but I'd still consider the model (equations+macro code) as the
product of distribution, which does not fit the conventional understanding
of "code."

Chuck - thank you for the pointers about academic patents.

Secondly, at least here in the USA, pure facts / data are not protectable,
but  creative arrangements of the data and the code written for your macros
likely are.  This said, almost all programs consist of a combination of code
and data, and existing licenses should be applicable to your case without
needing to create a new license.

I like the term "creative arrangements of data" - what I'm trying to call a
model is technically a worksheet with such creative arrangements, that make
it easy for a decision-maker to input data, and then computes what the best
decision should be for a particular context that the model applies to. 

I would like to be OSI-compatible, so with Creative-Commons, I might go with
the ShareAlike version (and not add any other restrictions), or perhaps even
dedicate it to the public domain. But I'm thinking that there might be many
like me who have done a lot of creative work on spreadsheets, that is
actually quite helpful for management decisions and goes far beyond data -
this is about capturing a thought process. 

So the key question is, is there any precedent on treating "worksheet
equations+macros+arrangement of cells" as code? If not, what if we define a
"spreadsheet model" as such, and create an OSI-compatible license for such
models?

Thanks in advance for your reflections.

Regards,

Somik

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 4:46 PM, Chuck Swiger <chuck at codefab.com> wrote:

Hi, Somik--

Somik Raha wrote:

Hi Folks,

I'm a Phd student in the area of decision analysis and have been making
decision models for public safety that I'd like to put out there for
administrators working on such issues, to help clarify their thinking. Most
of this work is in the form of Excel models. I want to go the open-source
route - but I don't know of any license that can be put on excel models. The
closest seems to be a modified form of the LGPL for Excel macros. The
intellectual property that I want to protect is in the wiring of the
spreadsheet and sometimes in the macros.

Would love to hear suggestions. Here are the two alternatives I've come up
with so far:
1) Come up with a new open-source license for the content of spreadsheet
files in general
2) Come up with a new open-source license for Decision Models (this includes
the idea of the model, as represented in powerpoint slides, spreadsheet
models or code). 

First, you should review your student handbook and discuss this with your
PhD advisor to be sure you are the one to make the decision.  You might
discover that your university claims ownership of IP developed by students
using their facilities.  (Ask first, and get it in writing beforehand to
avoid surprises.)

Secondly, at least here in the USA, pure facts / data are not protectable,
but  creative arrangements of the data and the code written for your macros
likely are.  This said, almost all programs consist of a combination of code
and data, and existing licenses should be applicable to your case without
needing to create a new license.

Which licenses you might want to consider depends on whether you want to
make this freely available without restrictions (in which case, simple
permissive licenses like BSD/MIT are good, the Academic Free License is also
a possibility) or if you want to copyleft the licensed material under the
GPL/LGPL; the creative commons licenses are another possibility, except that
they mostly contain more restrictions like "no derivative works" or
"non-commercial" which prevent them from being OSI open source.

If your circumstances are truly unique, and no existing license seems to
suit your needs, then you might consider writing your own license, but
please avoid doing that unless you really need to.  :-)

Regards,
-- 
-Chuck

-- 
Somik Raha
Doctoral Candidate
Decision and Risk Analysis
Dept. of Management Science & Engg.
Stanford University
(650) 450-8246
somik at stanford.edu
http://www.stanford.edu/~somik/

************************************************
The essence of the moral reformer and of the creator in the field of art
lies in not adjusting to the predominant norms or tastes, but unfurling the
flag of what "ought to be" over and above people's preferences.
-- Risieri Frondizi, in "What is Value?", Pg. 30 (1971)
************************************************

-- 
Somik Raha
Doctoral Candidate
Decision and Risk Analysis
Dept. of Management Science & Engg.
Stanford University
(650) 450-8246
somik at stanford.edu
http://www.stanford.edu/~somik/

************************************************
The essence of the moral reformer and of the creator in the field of art
lies in not adjusting to the predominant norms or tastes, but unfurling the
flag of what "ought to be" over and above people's preferences.
-- Risieri Frondizi, in "What is Value?", Pg. 30 (1971)
************************************************

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