Re: Licensing question about data for KStars

On Tue, May 05, 2009 at 08:30:12AM +0530, Akarsh Simha wrote:
> I got a response saying: "I have no problem with you using the SAC
> data for the Kstars program.  It was released with the rules that it
> is not sold as a seperate item." There have been other instances where
> the redistribution under GPL has been permitted (See
> http://www.freelists.org/post/sac-board/Permission-Request,5 for
> instance)
> 
> 1. Is this permission sufficient, or is something more required to
>    redistribute the data

They seem unclear on their own copying licence terms.  Some of the say
"public domain" which is great.  Others say "no commercial use" which
is not but the final message in the thread indicates this isn't the
actual case.

So the licence seems to be unrestricted use with acknowledgement,
which is fine for KDE.

I'd recommend writing to them (again) to clarify though and maybe
convince them to use the GPL directly, let me know if you want my help
on a good phrase to send them.

> 2. Is it required that I assign the original author / editor of the
>    original catalog as one of the copyright holders of the
>    GPL-licensed catalog?

Yes, they still own the copyright.

> 3. I also used the HyperLeda database, which is used primarily for
>    research purposes. They expect an acknowledgement in the following
>    manner:
>    http://leda.univ-lyon1.fr/acknowledge.html
>    However, they do not specify any licensing terms. Would it be
>    appropriate to use their data in KStars?

I don't see a download link for anything there, what actually gets
included?  It seems reasonable to infer that the intent is public
domain with attribution but I would e-mail them to check.

Jonathan