Free software at CERN: where are we, where are we going?

<!--HTML-->The 15th of November 1994, exactly 19 years before this seminar, CERN announced to the world that from then on, the CERN WEB software would be distributed under a free licence. This was the beginning of a long adventure for CERN in open source software. Through this historical example, Francois Fluckiger, who organized the November 94 release, will explain the differences between public domain and free software, between copyright and copyleft, between open and proprietary licencing. He will present the results of the CERN-wide Open-Source-Licence Task Force which delivered its final report to the Director General last year, and will answer the question “Which licence should be used at CERN for which class of software?”. But software is not the only domain where we strive for openness: articles, photos, videos, data, and hardware are all properties that CERN wishes to make widely available. Tim Smith, coordinating Open Source Licencing since this summer and involved in the Open Access and Open Media domains will explain how the software policy fits within the overall framework of open access at CERN. This seminar will therefore bring answers to the following questions: • Who owns software developed at CERN? • What should I do practically if I wish to publicly release software I wrote at CERN? • Is there a CERN policy regarding free access in general, regarding free software in particular? • What is the default free software licence to be used at CERN? Why was it chosen? • Are there exceptions to this default? If so, who decides that my case is an exception? • What is a copyright statement and where/how should I use it? • How practically to announce that my software is made available under a given licence? • What are licence incompatibilities and how to resolve them? • What is a derivative work? • Can someone take CERN free software and sell it? Re-licence it unchanged? Modify it? Re-licence it after change?