On Feb 1, 2019, at 11:22 AM, Brian Inglis <Brian.Inglis@SystematicSw.ab.ca> wrote:
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On 2019-02-01 08:10, Martin Burnicki wrote:
Brian Inglis wrote:
On 2019-01-07 23:39, Paul Eggert wrote:
Brian Inglis wrote:
suggests CC-PDM, CC0, ODC-PDDL, OGL, or EUPL may be suitable depending on which explicit permissions are required and whether obligations should be applied. Which of these are preferred by the masintainer? The intent of the tzdb (see Internet RFC 6657 section 7) is that it be in the public domain, so CC-PDM sounds like it's the most-appropriate. CC-BY 4.0 places more requirements than what RFC 6657 would allow, so it would be more problematic. Publications Office of the European Union Open Data Portal Helpdesk says "After careful consideration of your request, we are sorry to inform you that these datasets are produced by an international specialised body so we are unable to publish them in ODP." When I asked the IERS folks some years ago to make a leap second file in this format available they agreed to do it, but I bet they just did it without much thinking about the licensing. I'd really expect they would do what is required to make sure the file is in the public domain. The file was created for public usage, and they wouldn't have to put it on their public server if they had created it only for their own, internal usage.
Probably not top of mind or high on the priority list for government funded atomic-/astro-/geo-physicists, or most others, most places in the world: if anyone publishes stuff for use, you can use it, and that's normal.
-- Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Yes, that is quite logical. But intended for general use has no legal connection to copyright status. For example, most open source code is, by definition, intended for everyone to use at no charge. But it is covered by copyright. The TZ files are rather unusual in that respect because they are explicitly released into the public domain (no copyright). The question here is about copyright status of the files, not their intended use. paul