[License-discuss] Data portability as an obligation under an open source license

[Pamela Chestek]

On 7/2/2019 1:26 PM, VanL wrote:
> Regarding 2): Data access is not out of scope for software licensing
> generally; there are many examples of licenses that do or do not allow
> for data access. I have personally negotiated a number of enterprise
> licensing deals where data access was an explicit term in the
> agreement. So if it is not out of scope for software licenses as a
> whole, that reduces the question to whether this is out of scope for
> open source software. If that is so, I would like to understand where
> in the OSD that is being found.
This is a strawman. Proprietary licenses cover all sorts of things, so
they have no relevance to what the proper scope of an open source
license is.

As to "where in the OSD," I disagree with your framing that every
license must be approved unless we can point to a specific rule broken.
"Out of scope" is a valid reason; that is one reason why the human
rights licenses are rejected. Some things are just not appropriate
subject matter for trying to fix in an open source license.

Patents are appropriate subject matter because the exercise of patent
rights impairs the copyright grant, so it is appropriate for a license
to ensure that doesn't happen. But I don't see an analogy for
database/data rights; I don't see how data portability affects the use
of the software. You're using copyright as a mechanism to achieve a
purpose different from ensuring the right to use/modify/distribute
software. That's where a line can be drawn.

Pam

Pamela S. Chestek
Chestek Legal
PO Box 2492
Raleigh, NC 27602
919-800-8033
pamela at chesteklegal.com
www.chesteklegal.com