Slashdot Mirror
Open Source Licenses For Academic Work?
An anonymous reader writes "We're in the process of submitting a scientific paper describing some techniques for data analysis. We'll be releasing the associated code, so we're faced with choosing an appropriate license. My supervisor insists there should be a citation clause, requiring any published article that uses results of the software to cite our paper. Of course, ideally, free software shouldn't have such encumbrances, and I initially tried to talk him out of it. However, in academia, the issue of attribution and citation is very important. Also, it is not a restriction on use of the software per se, only on publication of results. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any such license. So I wondered: what do other academic Slashdotters do?"
Not one of 'em crazy academics but wouldn't this do?
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/
Your academic papers don't have such a licensce. They are cited because it's considered unethical not to do so. The same would apply to using your source code.
Also, your license can't actually enforce the citation clause. I mean whoever uses the code won't necessarily be the same person who writes the paper. Additionally I have some doubts that the kind of clause you are interested in would be legally enforceable.
Science works because we trust other scientists to cite our work if they use it. If we kept our work secret unless other scientists signed agreements to do so nothing would get done.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
To be honest, I think your best option is: "Ask nicely."
Seriously, academia and publishing and citation is a massive reputation system. It almost entirely works on the honor system, with formal inquiries occurring (rarely) when there are major transgressions. Let's say you find or write some complicated open-source license that requires citation. The code will still be available. Unscrupulous people could still use the code and publish without citation. Do you really think you (or your supervisor) would ever bother suing them? I highly doubt it. But you would certainly spread the word that these researchers don't cite properly. You would certainly bring up this issue during peer review. This is where the real damage to them will occur.
So, my recommendation is to just skip the middle-man, and don't bother with the unconventional FOSS license (which would just confuse people who want to use the software but won't ever publish anything). Wherever you post the code, just include a prominent request (on webpage, in README, and code headers) along the lines of "If you publish any work that uses this software, please cite XXX." Most scientists would be happy to add that citation. The only ones who wouldn't are the ones who try to pass off other's work as their own: do you really think they care about respecting copyright?
This is, at least, the procedure used in my field. Publish your paper. Release the code using a standard FOSS license.. Add a citation request. Done.
Just pick a standard OSI license, tell people who want to cite it how they can, and trust that it will work out. Don't try to force people to use your software in any peculiar way, even if that way does not seem "evil."
I asked a related question here several years ago. I have completed my schooling and released some open source software, some of which has been used and cited.
Copyright licenses generally protect holders from having others distribute their works in a way that they do not want. They do not place many restrictions on how the legally obtained work can be used. You might be able to use an end user license agreement that attempts to mandate citation & worse restrictions (such as not being able to publish software benchmarks) have certainly been imposed. Some authors even mandate registration before others can receive the source code & can then see who may be using but not citing their software. But I think this may actually be counterproductive & it certainly wouldn't be considered free software.
Academic integrity necessitates describing your work accurately in such a way that others can reproduce it. To do this, others will need to say what software they used to obtain the results they publish & they should choose to cite you. This won't always happen, but it will probably happen more frequently than you or your advisor think. It is certainly valid to write or call other academics who you know use your program and ask that they cite your paper in the future. In extreme situations, you can send a note to the editor of the journal that considers such papers that didn't cite your work & most editors will err on the side of strongly encouraging authors to add a citation.
Most other free/open source software that is used a lot in the sciences does not have a EULA of the type you subscribe, yet many are popular & are cited. They may have a FAQ entry or a mention in their README on what should be cited, but they don't try to make it legally binding.
You should ask yourself why you want to release it as free and open source software. Presumably, you hope that others will use it (obscurity is a worse threat than piracy) & maybe even to help you improve it. You also probably want to obtain some kind of academic prestige (which can come not only in the form of citation, but also from name recognition of both the program and the authors of that software). The best way to get this to happen is to write a solid piece of work that can do something that other works that cost (financially, time invested, and responsibilities involved) the same or less can't do as well and that other people want to do. Use a standard FSF/DFSG/OSI license (such as the GPL) & trust that everything else will work out. Getting quirky will discourage use of your software.
This was exactly my thought, we GPL all the software out of our lab. We also have a prominent notice on our download page giving the proper journal citation for this particular piece of software, so users know what to put.
However to not cite software used, particularly when the exact citation line is given to you so easily, in academic would be considered academic dishonesty. Sloppy as you said. And would reflect very poorly on the author of the paper if it were ever to come to light.
Since you can't really enforce it without a costly lawsuit, you simply have to have faith other academics will follow the same attribution code to cite sources, including software.
What might be more useful is writing this to a prominent journal in your field as a letter to bring attention to this issue, to help teach those older academics who never thought about the issues of citing software.
We do the same, release the software under the GPL along with a request to cite the proper journal references. You can't really enforce that, but we seem to get plenty of citations, so I think it's an honor system that mostly works. When I review a paper, I try to make sure the authors cite the software they use and if the paper describes original software, they release it. I don't really trust the results from black-box software.
A clause like this is attempting to inflate citation counts beyond what would normally be expected, mainly by forcing even marginal use to result in a citation when often it wouldn't merit one (I don't cite, say, the manual for the Dell computer I use).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10