[Debian-med-packaging] Comments regarding theseus_1.3.9-1_i386.changes

[Morten Kjeldgaard]

On 13/12/2008, at 15.53, Frank Lichtenheld wrote:

> Ok, I have to admit I'm confused:
>
> Files: examples/*
> Copyright: PD
> License:
> ADVISORY NOTICE FOR USE OF THE PDB ARCHIVE
> [...]
> X-Comment: The files in examples/ are in the public domain, and can  
> be copied
> and distributed with no restriction. It is scientific data from the  
> Protein
> Data Bank (http://www.pdb.org) and the database ASTRAL
> (http://astral.berkeley.edu).
>
> What is it? PD or licensed under the license stated?

The problem here is that no one at the PDB or elsewhere have ever  
given the concept "copyright" a thought. The data is distributed  
according to the very old "honor" concept in scientific research,  
where all the recipient has to do is to cite -- and thus credit -- the  
originators of the data in any work that comes out of it. So it is  
basically free as in both beer and speech. If you ask "who owns this  
data?"  Is it the original authors? Is it the PDB? Is it the  
government or research body that sponsored the research? Nobody  
knows... and -- to be honest -- nobody probably cares.

According to what I've been able to find out, the PDB files (freely  
downloadable from http://www.pdb.org) are in the public domain,  
concerning the COPYRIGHT of the data. Whether or not PD is a legal  
concept all over the world (and the data comes from all over the  
world) is another matter. But since the PDB is a US government  
sponsored service, and they are the distributor, that is what matters  
I think.

Concerning the LICENSE TO DISTRIBUTE, there are certain restrictions,  
basically to prevent people from distributing altered or forged files  
using the PDB four-letter identifiers. In other words, there is no  
restriction if the data is distributed un-altered. If you modify the  
data somehow, you may not re-distribute it using file names containing  
that four-letter id string.

So, as far as I can tell, the content of the copyright file is  
correct. The copyright is PD, and the license to distribute is as  
stated.

Cheers,
Morten


-- 
Morten Kjeldgaard
mok0 at ubuntu.com
Key fingerprint = FC53 53B2 81D1 27CA 45D5  F864 078C F31B 4048 25E7