The Public License Selector: Making Open Licensing Easier

The Public License Selector: Making Open Licensing Easier Paweł Kamocki, Pavel Straˇnák, Michal Sedlák Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim / Université Paris Descartes / WWU Münster Charles University in Prague, Charles University in Prague Address1, Address2, Address3 kamocki@ids-mannheim.de, stranak@ufal.mff.cuni.cz, sedlak@ufal.mff.cuni.cz Abstract Researchers in Natural Language Processing rely on availability of data and software, ideally under open licenses, but little is done to actively encourage it. In fact, the current Copyright framework grants exclusive rights to authors to copy their works, make them available to the public and make derivative works (such as annotated language corpora). Moreover, in the EU databases are protected against unauthorized extraction and re-utilization of their contents. Therefore, proper public licensing plays a crucial role in providing access to research data. A public license is a license that grants certain rights not to one particular user, but to the general public (everybody). Our article presents a tool that we developed and whose purpose is to assist the user in the licensing process. As software and data should be licensed under different licenses, the tool is composed of two separate parts: Data and Software. The underlying logic as well as elements of the graphic interface are presented below. Keywords: Open Source, Open Data, Open Access, License, IP Rights, Copyright, Creative Commons 1. Introduction Researchers in Natural Language Processing, just like in Digital Humanities, rely on availability of data and soft- ware, ideally under open licenses, but little is done to ac- tively encourage it. Unlike many other projects, CLARIN has been paying particular attention to licensing questions. Most of us have experienced situations when having read a good paper, we have an idea to test or improve its hy- potheses, but cannot get access to the underlying data. Or, having created a dataset we cannot make it broadly avail- able because we not sure what we are allowed to do with the data. As far as software is concerned, the situation is similar, and even systems reported as state-of-the-art in the field need not be available. In computation linguistics, ACL has the option to submit data or software with a paper, but permanent data and software availability to all, not just to a reviewer, is still not required. In fact, the current Copyright framework grants exclusive rights to authors to copy their works, make them available to the public and make derivative works (such as annotated language corpora). Moreover, in the EU databases are pro- tected against unauthorized extraction and re-utilization of their contents. Therefore, proper public licensing plays a crucial role in providing access to research data. A public license is a li- cense that grants certain rights not to one particular user, but to the general public (everybody). However, the choice of a proper license is an uneasy (and often neglected) task. Therefore, tools like licentia.inria.fr or ELRA License Wiz- ard1 have been created. As a part of this movement, we de- veloped a tool that assists the user in the licensing process and that might …

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