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

[VanL]

On Tue, Jul 2, 2019 at 1:44 PM Christine Hall <christine at fossforce.com>
wrote:

>
> On 7/2/19 2:37 PM, Smith, McCoy wrote:
> > I think a better analogy would be the inclusion of the Installation
> > Information requirement in the *GPLv3 family of licenses.  That imposes
> > an obligation to provide data which is potentially completely divorced
> > from the executable code distributed under the license, and thus the
> > source code that must be provided.  For example, a checksum or other
> > hardware-instantiated feature which one needs to know in order to
> > reinstall modified executables derived from the *GPLv3 license source.
>
> And all of these things relate back to the software itself, do they not?
> User data collected by an application is not necessary to have to
> successfully use the software.
>
>
This is quite a good analogy. Yes, these things relate back to the software
itself, but note how they relate: They allow a user to modify and use the
software *in the desired context.* This language was included because
various organizations said "you have the right to modify and run the code,
you just can't run the modified code in the context of the device itself."
For example, modified TiVo software had the capability of being run on
different hardware, just not on a TiVo itself. Note that this also
coincidentally denied users the ability to use the recordings made by the
TiVo (the "user data").

This language was added to emphasize that part of software freedom was the
ability to use the software in the same or a significantly similar context.
It was not enough to be able to theoretically be able to run the software
somewhere else; you had to allow users to access the same hardware (and
coincidentally, the same user data) with a modified version.

The data portability provision is similar. Is it possible meaningfully
exercise the right to fork, if as a result of forking, you lose access to
all your data?

Thanks,
Van
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