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

[Christine Hall]

VanL, Pamela has pretty much summed up what I was going to write. 
Certainly, a commercial software license is a contract that can include 
just about anything the licensor wants, so that's a non-argument.

It's also true that just because a license is contrary to the OSD 
license doesn't automatically make it a good candidate for OSI approval. 
"Out of scope" is a perfect term for phrasing my objections, especially 
since this proposal can lead to all sorts of costly legal disputes over 
who owns the data in question.

Again, it's my thought that open source licensing should focus on the 
software itself, and not on the products of that software, otherwise you 
are interfering with the rights of the users of the software.

As Unix users used to say, "Do one thing and do it well."

Christine Hall
Publisher & Editor
FOSS Force: Keeping tech free
http://fossforce.com

On 7/2/19 1:54 PM, Pamela Chestek wrote:
> 
> 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
> 
> 
> 
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