pcplantdb

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>]

Richard Morris wrote:
> > From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>
> > As I will occupy all time I have available to entering data into the wiki
> > (and into my website) I will leave porting it to the db to others. I want
> > a record of and my own copy of contributions I make to the db. Rich needs to
> > let us know what the nonpaying public will be able to access in PFAF and what 
> > they
> > can do with information resources thet derive from PFAF. As I have spent over 
> > 15
> > years doing what I do on the Web without pay I have a special interest in the 
> > open
> > source information concept. I understand PFAF needs income but for my 
> > purposes I want
> > what I donate to PFAF to be made available to the public for free.

> There is not a problem here. The way I picture the way things are set up
> is that each individual contribution is attributed to its author
> the copyright/license of that is up to the individual author.
> So data you add is still your data and not pfaf's.

> Question, I know in OpenSource the modifications made MUST
> be available to the original author. Don't know on what terms
> this would be. I guess that would mean that if pfaf add a lot of
> data under OpenSource edits people do will be available to pfaf.
> (And we can do what the hell we want with it??? Hum maybe not as the
> edits will be GPL'd)
>
> I haven't really studied gnu license in detail, if anyone
> knows more about this it would be good to know.
>
> As to our Licensing policy, my general thoughts (not necessarily
> pfaf's are) are
>
> 1) For Public Domain non commercial use
>         as GPL (or something more appropriate for data)
>         i.e. a) any derived product must be GPL as well
> 	     b) modified data must be freely available to 
> 		third parties at no cost (excluding postage)
>
> 2) For commercial derived products
>         A license fee is payable to PFAF
>         (Small proportions of data may be commercially redistributed
>         for free)
>
> 3) Above only applies to PFAF dataset. The php/mysql code
> will probably be GPL by the project team.
> Minor Edits to pfaf data probably count as modifications.
> Whole new sections (say adding data about folklaw) and
> new plants probably count as original data rather than
> modifications.
>
> This is entirely in line with OpenSouce movement. Please note that
> OpenSource != FreeSoftware 
> OpenSource != PublicDomain
>
> i.e. PublicDomain means anyone can do what the hell they want,
> sell it and make mega bucks off your hard word.
>
> Question how would YOU feel if Monsanto took the data you added to
> the wiki/pcplantdb turned it into a commercial product which they sold
> (making the original data available via an obscure link on their
> website)?

My current attitude about this is that they are welcome to it; I'm resigned 
to that happening.
I see this as my contributing to the big pool of information on the Web, 
something that a lot of
people do and have done since the start of the Internet and is what makes the 
Web such an incredible
resource for everyone. This also applies to PFAF; they are welcome to do 
whatever they please with
anything I make available in my website or in the wiki, make megabucks, fame 
or gain knowledge.
This applies to anyone accessing my contributions over electronic media. If 
wanted to protect my work
I would make it available in my commercial website (market-farming.com and 
other domains) by online purchase
for personal, non-commercial use only or for an additional fee, full 
commercial reuse.

What I intended to say above was that if I go to extra lengths to prepare 
data especially for PFAF
accessed via webtools I configure and maintain (i.e. the wiki) I would hope 
but would not
force PFAF to be honor bound to make this data available to the public at no 
charge.
If PFAF did as you suggest hypothetically Monsanto might do that would be a 
disappointment only.
On the other hand I would hope my contributions to PFAF would serve two 
purposes: that some or all of
it would be made available to the public at large for free and at the same 
time it would contribute to PFAF's
fund raising effort.

> I've included MySQL's interpretation of the GNU license and the
> GPL below. I'm thinking of something similar in spirit for the PFAF
> dataset.

<...>


--
L.F.London
lfl@intrex.net
http://market-farming.com
http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech/pcwiki/index.php/london