A Quick Guide to Software Licensing for the Scientist-Programmer The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Morin, Andrew, Jennifer Urban, and Piotr Sliz. 2012. A quick guide to software licensing for the scientist-programmer. PLoS Computational Biology 8(7): e1002598. Published Version doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002598 Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:10445641 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Education A Quick Guide to Software Licensing for the Scientist- Programmer Andrew Morin1, Jennifer Urban2, Piotr Sliz1* 1 Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, 2 Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic, School of Law, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, California, United States of America Computing is ubiquitous in every institutional TTO when choosing soft- intellectual property (IP) rights. Under domain of scientific research. Software is ware licenses. the policies of most academic and the means by which scientists harness the research institutions, researchers who power of computers, and much scientific Why Software Licenses Are have created a piece of software are computing relies on software conceived Important unlikely to own full rights to their works. and developed by other practicing re- Instead, the institution generally holds or searchers. The task of creating scientific Licenses are important tools for setting shares legal right to developed software. software, however, does not end with the specific terms on which software may be Institutions’ policies on IP ownership publication of computed results. Making used, modified, or distributed. Based on vary, but in most cases your institution the developed software available for in- the copyright protection automatically will be the legal ‘‘rights owner,’’ and will spection and use by other scientists is granted to all original works, a software be the entity that actually grants the essential to reproducibility, peer-review, license—essentially, a set of formal per- license you choose for your software. and the ability to build upon others’ work missions from the copyright holder—may Although many types of licenses, espe- [1,2]. In fulfilling expectations to distribute include specific ‘‘conditions’’ of use, and cially of the ‘‘free and open source’’ and disseminate their software, scientist- are an important part of the legally variety, are simple enough for the non- programmers are required to be not only binding contract between program author legal expert to understand and apply proficient scientists and coders, but also (or rights owner) and end-user. (Figure 1), it is generally necessary to knowledgeable in legal strategies for li- Without a license agreement, software consult your institutions’ TTO before censing their software. Navigating the may be left in a state of legal uncertainty in imposing a license. See below for more often complex legal landscape of software which potential users may not know which information about working with your licensing can be overwhelming, even for limitations owners may want to enforce, institution in applying a license. sophisticated programmers. Institutional and owners may leave themselves vulner- technology transfer offices (TTOs) exist able to legal claims or have difficulty Types of Software Licenses to help address this need, but due to controlling how their work is used. This is mismatches in expectations or specific equally true for software that is commer- Colloquially speaking, the spectrum of domain knowledge, interactions between cialized and offered for a fee, and software software licensing strategies can be divided scientists and TTO staff can result in that is made available without cost to into three categories: ‘‘proprietary,’’ ‘‘free suboptimal outcomes. others. While end-users often balk at overly and open source,’’ or a hybrid of the two. As practitioners in the scientific com- restrictive software licenses, the uncertainty puting and technology law fields, we caused when no license is given can also Proprietary Licensing have witnessed firsthand the confusion discourage those wishing to make use of a This strategy is familiar from the ‘‘click- and difficulties associated with licensing piece of code. It is important to note that thru’’ agreements that govern commercial scientifically generated software. SBGri- licenses can be used to facilitate access to software packages. The primary purpose d.org is a consortium of scientific software as well as restrict it. of a proprietary software license is to limit software developers and users in hun- the use of software according to the rights dreds of biomedical research laborato- Software Licensing in Academic owner’s business strategy. As a result, ries worldwide. As facilitator and mid- and Research Environments proprietary licenses are often very restric- dleman between developers and end- tive for end-users. They typically allow use users, we commonly assist in the dissem- Foralicensetobevaliditmustbe of the software only for its stated purpose, ination and use of scientifically generat- granted by the owner of the work’s often only on a single computer, forbid ed software. Through research and advocacy, the Samuelson Law, Technol- Citation: Morin A, Urban J, Sliz P (2012) A Quick Guide to Software Licensing for the Scientist- ogy and Public Policy Clinic works with Programmer. PLoS Comput Biol 8(7): e1002598. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002598 software developers and other creators Editor: Fran Lewitter, Whitehead Institute, United States of America on licensing issues, particularly issues Published July 26, 2012 related to facilitating ‘‘open access’’ to Copyright: ß 2012 Morin et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative scientific, technical, or creative materi- Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, als. Together, we offer a primer on provided the original author and source are credited. software licensing with a focus on the Funding: The work was supported by the National Science Foundation grant 0639193 (PS). The funders had particular needs of the scientist software no role in the preparation of the manuscript. developer. The aim of this guide is to Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. help scientists better engage with their * E-mail: [email protected] PLoS Computational Biology | www.ploscompbiol.org 1 July 2012 | Volume 8 | Issue 7 | e1002598 Figure 1. Example of FOSS license with ‘‘academic’’ style copyright statement. The example shown is the entirety of a 2-Clause BSD [8] license with copyright statement (at top, within quotes). The text of the license is in black. Red highlighted text is where the copyright holder applying the license inserts their specific information. Application of this and many FOSS licenses simply require that the text of the license be included (usually as ‘‘License.txt’’) in the directory containing the distributed program binary and or source code. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002598.g001 users from copying, redistributing, or common misconception is that FOSS is called dual- or multi-licensing) approach- altering the work, and specifically prohibit synonymous with ‘‘noncommercial.’’ In es—combining a FOSS license with a the creation of derivatives using parts of fact, as described by the two most proprietary ‘‘closed’’ license—are some- the work. Importantly, programs under influential definitions of FOSS [3,4], times used. Under this strategy, the rights proprietary licenses are typically distribut- ‘‘non-discriminatory’’ means that no cate- owner chooses which license to apply on a ed only in binary form and forbid gory of user or distributor can be prohib- case-by-case basis. When ownership and examination of the program code or ited, including for-profit commercial enti- licensing rights are clear, these licensing reverse engineering of any part of the ties. As such, FOSS-licensed software can schemes can maintain some of the benefits program. In academic settings, proprietary be, and regularly is, commercially exploit- of FOSS while also permitting creators to software may occasionally release source ed. Some cited benefits of a FOSS strategy employ multiple business models [6]. The code ‘‘for inspection purposes only’’ due to include widespread adoption, user contri- downside can be a significant added scientific publishing and peer-review re- butions, and ease of collaboration [5]. burden for the rights owner in applying, quirements (Table 1). Additionally, because of their open and administering, and enforcing multiple non-discriminatory nature, FOSS licenses licenses. This has generally limited the Free and Open Source Software can simplify continued development and adoption of hybrid license models to large (FOSS) Licensing collaboration when researchers switch software development initiatives. Free and open source software (FOSS) institutions, and when they collaborate represents a fundamentally different ap- across institutions. FOSS can also help to Terms, Concepts, and Examples extend the useful