[Pkg-isocodes-devel] Fwd: Re: Scope of isocodes License for Semantic Web Applications?

[Tobias Toedter]

Hi Alastair,

I think you did not include Ian in the list of recipients of your answer, so 
I'm forwarding your reply to him.

Regards,
Tobias

----------  Forwarded Message  ----------

Subject: Re: [Pkg-isocodes-devel] Fwd: Scope of isocodes License for 
Semantic Web Applications?
Date: Friday 09 February 2007 12:33
From: Alastair McKinstry <mckinstry at computer.org>
To: pkg-isocodes-devel at lists.alioth.debian.org, Tobias Toedter 
<t.toedter at gmx.net>

> Greetings,
>
> I am e-mailing you to ask a question that you may have an answer for
> (or maybe not?).  I am currently using data from your isocodes package
> (primarily the static XML file and .po files) in a database to
> generate the data in my Semantic Web Locationary
> (http://www.pipian.com/rdf/places/).  While I'm quite willing to
> contribute back and help you guys out for this wonderful data source
> (after all, some of those ISO 3166-2 translations are particularly
> horrendous due to 'automatching', and I have a vested interest in
> correcting and getting an authoritative ISO 3166-2 code list, as you
> likely are (and do not have.  UN/LOCODE ), I am a little bit concerned
> how the LGPL license on the isocodes package would translate to this
> application, as it is not verbatim linking, not proper 'modification'
> at best (as data is generated dynamically), and isn't distributed in a
> traditional 'all-in-one' sense.
>
> I've got some familiarity with the license, but I'm unfamiliar as to
> if it would contaminate licenses on derivative data (e.g. my results)
> and furthermore, contaminate other datastores downstream that
> reference the data I provide.
>
> While I am not actively using any of the few python scripts included
> with your code, if the license is a bit more viral than Creative
> Commons Attribution, and it applies to the translations/XML itself, it
> could pose problems for this use of the data (which I hope to not have
> to license any more stringently than CC-A at worst, so that the
> reformatted data can be used in applications).
>
> --
>
> Ian Jacobi

Hi,

I think your fears are unfounded. Try to avoid 'marketing' terms like
'viral': you won't catch licensing issues from
GPL / LGPL; its deliberately used in certain quarters to spread fear. In
this case, the LGPL was chosen
so as to enable easy use of the package: using the iso-codes package
does not mean you code has to become
open-source, only that if you ship iso-codes as part of a commercial
product, you should (somewhere in the
documentation, eg. a help page) where you got iso-codes from, and
pointers to the source. Unlike applications,
its unlikely that people are going to fork iso-codes and add their own
patches: the standard is updated fairly
regularly (adding new currencies, for example), and it is best to allow
the package to be updatable easily.

As I understand your application, it would be sufficient to acknowledge
iso-codes, and to use it dynamically
to generate your content. Your content would not be considered a
"derivative" of iso-codes, but purely a use
of it. If you have any changes you could like to see in the iso-codes
package, we'd be happy to hear feedback.


Regards
Alastair mcKinstry
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