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On Tue, Jun 24, 2003 at 01:52:28PM -0400, Jason Harris wrote:
> > Miguel Coca (spacechart's upstream maintainer) contacted the ESA
> > people and they did say that he was free to use this catalogue in
> > spacechart, redistribute it and modify it, but they did not mention it =
was
> > in the public domain (please see spacechart's debian/copyright file for
> > more information on this).
> >
> I don't see how you've demonstrated that it isn't public domain.  Where i=
s=20
> spacechart's debian/copyright file?  I downloaded the spacechart tarball,=
 but=20

Sorry. The debian/copyright is in the Debian package (check=20
packages.debian.org/spacechart, version 0.9.5 or above). Miguel provides a=
=20
'COPYING' file in the data subdir of the upstream package, it includes=20
answers from people at ESA and the CDS but none of them say "it's in the=20
public domain"

> it wasn't there.  It just seems like the people publishing scientific dat=
a=20
> care a lot less about licensing issues than the average GNU/Linux develop=
er,=20

That's true. I would like to not care about licensing issues but=20
unfortunately, we leave in a rough world were you get sued because of them=
=20
(or because of infrignment of IP laws even if done unknowingly). We (that=
=20
is, Debian) have to be extremely careful with these issues if we want to=20
provide our users with a truly free operating system.=20

> so they just say "sure, use it for whatever, go ahead and redistribute,=
=20
> whatever".  Since you don't explicitly hear the phrase "public domain" yo=
u=20
> interpret this as being still proprietary somehow.

Unfortunately, that's what copyright law says, in the US, in the EU and in
all countries that have signed the WIPO treaty. Copy rights
(redistribution, modification) need to be explicitly granted, that's why=20
even a FAQ from ADC (which is somewhat vague) is not enough. I would rather=
=20
have each author of the catalogue (be it the institution who paid for it or=
=20
the person who made it) say "this catalogue is in the public domain"

It might be also the case that (some, all of?) the star data catalogues
have been developed under some kind of government grant which usually (in=
=20
the US and, in some cases, in the European Union) makes that work go=20
directly to the "public domain".

>=20
> > I do not think ADC's FAQ applies to the SAO data.=20
> I hope I have convinced you by now.
>=20

Somewhat more but, unfortunately, I'm not yet 100% convinced.

> > ADC will no longer exist
> > in some time, it's replacement's (such as the French Vizier [1]) does n=
ot
> > say catalogues are in the public domain.
> >
> Yes, the CDS says even less about usage than ADC does, which was not a he=
ck of=20
> a lot.  I really think this is simply because the people publishing the b=
ig=20
> astro catalogs don't know and/or care much about the licensing issues tha=
t we=20
> are (apparently) so passionate about.  In any case, I have sent off sever=
al=20

I really think this is the issue. Scientific work is usually done on this
terms, that is, scientific discoveries are shared to the benefit of the
community. I would just love that to happen in the software community but
it is not the case currently. What the scientific community takes for
granted (data is free, everybody needs it and should be shared) is not that=
=20
much in either copyright law (databases are copyrighted too) or in the=20
software community (in which both the software, and the data it uses, be it=
=20
documentation, images or raw data, are copyrighted)

> direct emails to people at SAO, CDS, and ADC (including my ex-officemate =
 who=20
> is now at CDS), so we'll see what they say. =20

Thanks a lot for taking this matter into your hands. I really appreciate=20
it. This is really an issue that someone in the astronomy community should=
=20
send some light on. I would really like to have star data catalogues as=20
part of Debian and have all astronomy packages share them (i.e. avoid=20
having three differen copies of esentially the same data, be it the=20
Gliese, Yale, SAO or Hipparcos catalogues)=20

Regards


Javier Fernandez-Sanguino

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