[License-review] Request for approval by license steward: Tidepool Open Access to Health Data Software License

[Richard Fontana]

On Sat, 5 Oct 2013 11:58:36 -0700
Howard Look <howard at tidepool.org> wrote:
 
> “Open” as applied to Health Data will have the meaning ascribed to
> such term by the Open Definition promulgated at opendefinition.org,
> version 1.1 and any later version; 

What if a future version of the Open Definition conflicts with the
current version? (Should "and any" be "or any"?)
 
> For avoidance of doubt, as applied to Health Data under this license,
> “Open” means that in the event you apply any encryption or
> obfuscation to the Health Data using the Software, you must provide
> the Data Owner with any encryption keys or other suitable means, free
> of charge, to access such Health Data, in a manner sufficient to
> allow a Data Owner with ordinary skill and knowledge to extract and
> store the Health Data in a non-proprietary format, in both
> human-readable and machine-accessible forms.

A comment on the end of this sentence: You say in your FAQ:

  Q: Is it good enough to provide access to a downloadable CSV or excel
  file?

  No, that's not good enough. You need to provide a mechanism for
  another application to automatically access the data, such as through
  a published API. This is what we mean by "machine-accessible."

Perhaps you should define "machine-accessible" in the license as I am
not sure it would be obvious that, say, a CSV file would not satisfy
the requirement.

> (C) Open Health Data.  You must ensure that the Health Data remains
> Open to its Data Owner for a period of three years after the Health
> Data is first generated.  
 
Am I correct that, under this license 3(C) is meant to be triggered even
if the user is engaged in purely internal or private use of the
software? (Perhaps this is not a usage you contemplate for the
software you intend to release, but I think it is a key issue to be
considered.)

- RF