NIST leap-second file not yet updated
Hi all, please note the NIST leap-second file at ftp://time.nist.gov/pub/ has not yet been updated according to IERS bulletin C 51. It's still the version which has been published in July 2015, and will expire in June 2016. I saw that also tzdata2016a.tar.gz which has been published 2016-01-26 still contains the old leap second file even though bulletin C 51 has already been published 2016-01-11. I've dropped Judah Levine a similar note, but eventually you can include the IERS version of the file into the TZ DB distribution. The IERS file has already been updated and expires 2016-12-28. Regards, Martin -- Martin Burnicki Senior Software Engineer MEINBERG Funkuhren GmbH & Co. KG Email: martin.burnicki@meinberg.de Phone: +49 (0)5281 9309-14 Fax: +49 (0)5281 9309-30 Lange Wand 9, 31812 Bad Pyrmont, Germany Amtsgericht Hannover 17HRA 100322 Geschäftsführer/Managing Directors: Günter Meinberg, Werner Meinberg, Andre Hartmann, Heiko Gerstung Web: http://www.meinberg.de
On 15 Feb 2016 11:39, Martin Burnicki wrote:
please note the NIST leap-second file at ftp://time.nist.gov/pub/ has not yet been updated according to IERS bulletin C 51. It's still the version which has been published in July 2015, and will expire in June 2016.
I saw that also tzdata2016a.tar.gz which has been published 2016-01-26 still contains the old leap second file even though bulletin C 51 has already been published 2016-01-11. I had the same thought.
I prepared the attached patch which uses the file from IERS shortly after the 2016-01-11 announcement, but was sitting on it while we waited for NIST, since the conversation at the time seemed to indicate that NIST was our preferred source. I think, though, that since IERS actually decides the leap seconds and seems to be updating their file more promptly, it might be worthwhile to consider switching to IERS as our canonical source for this file. -- Tim Parenti
On Mon 2016-02-15T12:14:52 -0500, Tim Parenti hath writ:
I prepared the attached patch which uses the file from IERS shortly after the 2016-01-11 announcement, but was sitting on it while we waited for NIST, since the conversation at the time seemed to indicate that NIST was our preferred source. I think, though, that since IERS actually decides the leap seconds and seems to be updating their file more promptly, it might be worthwhile to consider switching to IERS as our canonical source for this file.
That makes sense. Announcing the leap seconds is part of the charter of the IERS, and staff there are on public record as having interest in disseminating the information. It is not part of the charter of NIST, and staff there are on public record as not wanting leap seconds to exist. -- Steve Allen <sla@ucolick.org> WGS-84 (GPS) UCO/Lick Observatory--ISB Natural Sciences II, Room 165 Lat +36.99855 1156 High Street Voice: +1 831 459 3046 Lng -122.06015 Santa Cruz, CA 95064 http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/ Hgt +250 m
On Feb 15, 2016, at 12:49 PM, Steve Allen <sla@ucolick.org> wrote:
On Mon 2016-02-15T12:14:52 -0500, Tim Parenti hath writ:
I prepared the attached patch which uses the file from IERS shortly after the 2016-01-11 announcement, but was sitting on it while we waited for NIST, since the conversation at the time seemed to indicate that NIST was our preferred source. I think, though, that since IERS actually decides the leap seconds and seems to be updating their file more promptly, it might be worthwhile to consider switching to IERS as our canonical source for this file.
That makes sense. Announcing the leap seconds is part of the charter of the IERS, and staff there are on public record as having interest in disseminating the information. It is not part of the charter of NIST, and staff there are on public record as not wanting leap seconds to exist.
I'll second that. And even if it were part of the NIST charter, NIST would only be a secondary source, not the primary source. IERS is the originator of the data; why use a middleman? If we currently have anything saying that we use any source other than IERS as the supplier of leap second data, we should fix that. paul
Paul Eggert in... http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/tzdist/current/msg01135.html ... from 2014-12-17 notes that "...the IERS file is copyrighted. That is why the tz database reproduces the NIST file (the NIST file is public domain). Other distributors of the IERS file might want to keep this in mind." Unless the copyright situation has changed since then... @dashdashado On Mon, Feb 15, 2016 at 1:20 PM, <Paul_Koning@dell.com> wrote:
On Feb 15, 2016, at 12:49 PM, Steve Allen <sla@ucolick.org> wrote:
On Mon 2016-02-15T12:14:52 -0500, Tim Parenti hath writ:
I prepared the attached patch which uses the file from IERS shortly after the 2016-01-11 announcement, but was sitting on it while we waited for NIST, since the conversation at the time seemed to indicate that NIST was our preferred source. I think, though, that since IERS actually decides the leap seconds and seems to be updating their file more promptly, it might be worthwhile to consider switching to IERS as our canonical source for this file.
That makes sense. Announcing the leap seconds is part of the charter of the IERS, and staff there are on public record as having interest in disseminating the information. It is not part of the charter of NIST, and staff there are on public record as not wanting leap seconds to exist.
I'll second that. And even if it were part of the NIST charter, NIST would only be a secondary source, not the primary source. IERS is the originator of the data; why use a middleman?
If we currently have anything saying that we use any source other than IERS as the supplier of leap second data, we should fix that.
paul
On 15 February 2016 at 13:29, Arthur David Olson <arthurdavidolson@gmail.com
wrote:
Unless the copyright situation has changed since then...
I'm not sure how the staff of IERS feel about this, but this sounds like the kind of thing that might perhaps be solved by a simple request. If, as Steve says, they're "on public record as having interest in disseminating the information", then perhaps they'd be glad to more explicitly place it in the public domain. -- Tim Parenti
Tim Parenti wrote:
On 15 February 2016 at 13:29, Arthur David Olson <arthurdavidolson@gmail.com <mailto:arthurdavidolson@gmail.com>> wrote:
Unless the copyright situation has changed since then...
Hm, I've just had a look at the current file once more: https://hpiers.obspm.fr/iers/bul/bulc/ntp/leap-seconds.list I don't see any copyright statement at all in it, nor in the directory containing the file. Would we require a statement telling explicitly that permission to copy the file is granted?
I'm not sure how the staff of IERS feel about this, but this sounds like the kind of thing that might perhaps be solved by a simple request. If, as Steve says, they're "on public record as having interest in disseminating the information", then perhaps they'd be glad to more explicitly place it in the public domain.
I think this is true. I've been earlier in touch with the folks who create the file so I'll contact them and ask ... Martin
Tim Parenti wrote:
On 15 February 2016 at 13:29, Arthur David Olson <arthurdavidolson@gmail.com <mailto:arthurdavidolson@gmail.com>> wrote:
Unless the copyright situation has changed since then...
Hm, I've just had a look at the current file once more: https://hpiers.obspm.fr/iers/bul/bulc/ntp/leap-seconds.list I don't see any copyright statement at all in it, nor in the directory containing the file. Would we require a statement telling explicitly that permission to copy the file is granted?
I'm not sure how the staff of IERS feel about this, but this sounds like the kind of thing that might perhaps be solved by a simple request. If, as Steve says, they're "on public record as having interest in disseminating the information", then perhaps they'd be glad to more explicitly place it in the public domain.
I think this is true. I've been earlier in touch with the folks who create the file so I'll contact them and ask ... Martin -- Martin Burnicki MEINBERG Funkuhren GmbH & Co. KG Email: martin.burnicki@meinberg.de Phone: +49 (0)5281 9309-14 Fax: +49 (0)5281 9309-30 Lange Wand 9, 31812 Bad Pyrmont, Germany Amtsgericht Hannover 17HRA 100322 Geschäftsführer/Managing Directors: Günter Meinberg, Werner Meinberg, Andre Hartmann, Heiko Gerstung Web: http://www.meinberg.de
On Feb 15, 2016, at 2:55 PM, Martin Burnicki <martin.burnicki@meinberg.de> wrote:
Tim Parenti wrote:
On 15 February 2016 at 13:29, Arthur David Olson <arthurdavidolson@gmail.com <mailto:arthurdavidolson@gmail.com>> wrote:
Unless the copyright situation has changed since then...
Hm, I've just had a look at the current file once more: https://hpiers.obspm.fr/iers/bul/bulc/ntp/leap-seconds.list
I don't see any copyright statement at all in it, nor in the directory containing the file.
Would we require a statement telling explicitly that permission to copy the file is granted?
Yes, I believe so. As others have pointed out, current copyright law (I believe in most countries, as part of the current copyright treaty arrangements) is that copyright is automatic. That replaces an earlier US rule that copyright only applies if explicitly claimed. This is why ADO added explicit "this is in the public domain"notices in the TZ files.
I'm not sure how the staff of IERS feel about this, but this sounds like the kind of thing that might perhaps be solved by a simple request. If, as Steve says, they're "on public record as having interest in disseminating the information", then perhaps they'd be glad to more explicitly place it in the public domain.
I think this is true. I've been earlier in touch with the folks who create the file so I'll contact them and ask ...
Given the mission of IERS, it would seem that this should not be an issue. It's pretty likely that the absence of a statement in the files is an oversight, perhaps caused by an assumption that absence of a stated restriction means there isn't a restriction. (But in fact, absence of statement means no permission -- it doesn't mean no restriction...) paul
Paul_Koning@dell.com said:
This is why ADO added explicit "this is in the public domain"notices in the TZ files.
Actually, "public domain" is a US concept that doesn't apply elsewhere. Better would be a statement saying that blanket permission is given for these files to be copied. One of the Creative Commons Licences would appear to be the right tool for the job.
IERS, it would seem that this should not be an issue. It's pretty likely that the absence of a statement in the files is an oversight, perhaps caused by an assumption that absence of a stated restriction means there isn't a restriction. (But in fact, absence of statement means no permission -- it doesn't mean no restriction...)
Actually, absence of statement means simply that no statement has been made. After all, permission can be granted in other ways. Perhaps there's a notice up in their offices :-) -- Clive D.W. Feather | If you lie to the compiler, Email: clive@davros.org | it will get its revenge. Web: http://www.davros.org | - Henry Spencer Mobile: +44 7973 377646
Martin Burnicki said:
Hm, I've just had a look at the current file once more: https://hpiers.obspm.fr/iers/bul/bulc/ntp/leap-seconds.list
I don't see any copyright statement at all in it, nor in the directory containing the file.
Irrelevant. Copyright exists and can't be made not to exist. (You're in Germany, right? You're subject to the Copyright Directive and the Berne Convention, same as I am.)
Would we require a statement telling explicitly that permission to copy the file is granted?
Yes.
I'm not sure how the staff of IERS feel about this, but this sounds like the kind of thing that might perhaps be solved by a simple request.
Indeed. -- Clive D.W. Feather | If you lie to the compiler, Email: clive@davros.org | it will get its revenge. Web: http://www.davros.org | - Henry Spencer Mobile: +44 7973 377646
Clive D.W. Feather wrote:
Martin Burnicki said:
Hm, I've just had a look at the current file once more: https://hpiers.obspm.fr/iers/bul/bulc/ntp/leap-seconds.list
I don't see any copyright statement at all in it, nor in the directory containing the file.
Irrelevant. Copyright exists and can't be made not to exist.
Yes, I know this. I just wondered where the difference comes from that the IERS file is considered to be copyrighted in the sense that it may not be copied or redistributed, while the NIS file is considered to be in the public domain, even though neither of the files contains a correspondent statement.
(You're in Germany, right? You're subject to the Copyright Directive and the Berne Convention, same as I am.)
Yes, I'm in Germany.
Would we require a statement telling explicitly that permission to copy the file is granted?
Yes.
I'm not sure how the staff of IERS feel about this, but this sounds like the kind of thing that might perhaps be solved by a simple request.
Indeed.
In the mean time it turned out this assumption is correct. The folks who make the file available are just more technicians and scientists than lawyers. ;-) Martin -- Martin Burnicki Senior Software Engineer MEINBERG Funkuhren GmbH & Co. KG Email: martin.burnicki@meinberg.de Phone: +49 (0)5281 9309-14 Fax: +49 (0)5281 9309-30 Lange Wand 9, 31812 Bad Pyrmont, Germany Amtsgericht Hannover 17HRA 100322 Geschäftsführer/Managing Directors: Günter Meinberg, Werner Meinberg, Andre Hartmann, Heiko Gerstung Web: http://www.meinberg.de
On Feb 18, 2016, at 10:04 AM, Martin Burnicki <martin.burnicki@meinberg.de> wrote:
Clive D.W. Feather wrote:
Martin Burnicki said:
Hm, I've just had a look at the current file once more: https://hpiers.obspm.fr/iers/bul/bulc/ntp/leap-seconds.list
I don't see any copyright statement at all in it, nor in the directory containing the file.
Irrelevant. Copyright exists and can't be made not to exist.
Yes, I know this. I just wondered where the difference comes from that the IERS file is considered to be copyrighted in the sense that it may not be copied or redistributed, while the NIS file is considered to be in the public domain, even though neither of the files contains a correspondent statement.
No. In the USA, the work of federal agencies is in the public domain by law. But in this case, the NIST version is a "derived work", so the public domain rule applies only to the portion that was created by NIST, not the portion that was taken from other sources. For the latter, as with any other derived work, the copyright that applies is that of the original author (or rather, owner) of that portion. And that would be IERS, presumably. paul
Martin Burnicki wrote:
Hm, I've just had a look at the current file once more: https://hpiers.obspm.fr/iers/bul/bulc/ntp/leap-seconds.list
I don't see any copyright statement at all in it, nor in the directory containing the file.
The NIST file doesn't contain a copyright information, neither. So where does the idea come from that the NIST file is in the public domain, but the IERS file isn't?
Would we require a statement telling explicitly that permission to copy the file is granted?
I'm not sure how the staff of IERS feel about this, but this sounds like the kind of thing that might perhaps be solved by a simple request. If, as Steve says, they're "on public record as having interest in disseminating the information", then perhaps they'd be glad to more explicitly place it in the public domain.
I think this is true. I've been earlier in touch with the folks who create the file so I'll contact them and ask ...
I've now contacted the IERS folks and asked them to add some copyright information. Martin -- Martin Burnicki Senior Software Engineer MEINBERG Funkuhren GmbH & Co. KG Email: martin.burnicki@meinberg.de Phone: +49 (0)5281 9309-14 Fax: +49 (0)5281 9309-30 Lange Wand 9, 31812 Bad Pyrmont, Germany Amtsgericht Hannover 17HRA 100322 Geschäftsführer/Managing Directors: Günter Meinberg, Werner Meinberg, Andre Hartmann, Heiko Gerstung Web: http://www.meinberg.de
Martin Burnicki <martin.burnicki@meinberg.de> wrote:
The NIST file doesn't contain a copyright information, neither. So where does the idea come from that the NIST file is in the public domain, but the IERS file isn't?
I believe works funded by the US federal government are public domain by default. The easy solution to this problem is for the TZ project to produce its own list of leap seconds rather than distributing someone else's. Tony. -- f.anthony.n.finch <dot@dotat.at> http://dotat.at/ German Bight, Humber, Thames, Dover, Wight, Portland, Plymouth: Variable 4, becoming south or southwest 4 or 5, increasing 6 or 7 later except in Dover. Slight or moderate, occasionally rough except in Thames, Dover and Wight. Isolated wintry showers, rain later in Plymouth. Good, occasionally moderate.
The NIST file doesn't contain a copyright information, neither. So where does the idea come from that the NIST file is in the public domain, but the IERS file isn't?
I believe works funded by the US federal government are public domain by default.
Produced by rather than funded by, but yes, works produced by US government officials in the course of their duties are ineligible for copyright in the US. It's 17 US Code §105, for those who are interested. - Adam
Adam Vartanian via tz said:
I believe works funded by the US federal government are public domain by default.
Produced by rather than funded by, but yes, works produced by US government officials in the course of their duties are ineligible for copyright in the US. It's 17 US Code §105, for those who are interested.
I presume this only applies to works they create, not works they simply copy from elsewhere. -- Clive D.W. Feather | If you lie to the compiler, Email: clive@davros.org | it will get its revenge. Web: http://www.davros.org | - Henry Spencer Mobile: +44 7973 377646
Tony Finch wrote:
Martin Burnicki <martin.burnicki@meinberg.de> wrote:
The NIST file doesn't contain a copyright information, neither. So where does the idea come from that the NIST file is in the public domain, but the IERS file isn't?
I believe works funded by the US federal government are public domain by default.
The easy solution to this problem is for the TZ project to produce its own list of leap seconds rather than distributing someone else's.
Of course everybody could easily create his own leap seconds file. However, the idea is to have a reliable, authentic source of information rather than a wide variety of files providing different information. BTW, IMO there should be a kind of signature for the file. Originally the file was only available via FTP, which can easily be faked. Now there are some sources via https, so at least when downloading there is a certain level of security that you get an authentic file. However, after download you still can't be sure the file has not been modified. The included SHA1 hash can be generated by anyone to let the file look secure, but a real security could only be achieved by a public/private key signature which can be verified at any time. Martin -- Martin Burnicki Senior Software Engineer MEINBERG Funkuhren GmbH & Co. KG Email: martin.burnicki@meinberg.de Phone: +49 (0)5281 9309-14 Fax: +49 (0)5281 9309-30 Lange Wand 9, 31812 Bad Pyrmont, Germany Amtsgericht Hannover 17HRA 100322 Geschäftsführer/Managing Directors: Günter Meinberg, Werner Meinberg, Andre Hartmann, Heiko Gerstung Web: http://www.meinberg.de
On 02/18/2016 07:12 AM, Martin Burnicki wrote:
after download you still can't be sure the file has not been modified. The included SHA1 hash can be generated by anyone
I wouldn't worry about this. We generate our own checksums for the entire tzdata distribution including the leap-seconds file, and sign them. The main problem here is legal, not technical. I agree with Tony that the EUPL is not suitable for the tz project. It's a pain to use the EUPL even with GPLed code (e.g., GNU/Linux), much less BSD (e.g., FreeBSD). We need something more like public-domain or 3-clause BSD, both of which we already use. Public domain is preferable because it's simpler. CC0 would also be OK, I expect. If this turns into a legal hassle for the IERS, as I suspect it will, then it's not worth their trouble. We'll just keep doing what we have been doing, or something like it.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512 Isn't CC0 designed specifically for this sort of situation? It's public domain with a fallback for jurisdictions where that concept doesn't exist. I've always been warned against using "crayon licenses" like simple declarations. Seems to me that any way you go, it's best to use one of the well known permissive licenses over something ad hoc. On February 18, 2016 11:29:44 AM EST, Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
On 02/18/2016 07:12 AM, Martin Burnicki wrote:
after download you still can't be sure the file has not been modified. The included SHA1 hash can be generated by anyone
I wouldn't worry about this. We generate our own checksums for the entire tzdata distribution including the leap-seconds file, and sign them.
The main problem here is legal, not technical.
I agree with Tony that the EUPL is not suitable for the tz project. It's a pain to use the EUPL even with GPLed code (e.g., GNU/Linux), much less BSD (e.g., FreeBSD). We need something more like public-domain or 3-clause BSD, both of which we already use. Public domain is preferable
because it's simpler. CC0 would also be OK, I expect.
If this turns into a legal hassle for the IERS, as I suspect it will, then it's not worth their trouble. We'll just keep doing what we have been doing, or something like it. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: APG v1.1.1
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Ultimately the language added gets decided by the IERS; we needn't necessarily make a decision. We might identify options (concise, verbose, by reference, or otherwise) that work for us and present those options to the IERS for their consideration. @dashdashado On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 12:04 PM, Paul G <paul@ganssle.io> wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA512
Isn't CC0 designed specifically for this sort of situation? It's public domain with a fallback for jurisdictions where that concept doesn't exist.
I've always been warned against using "crayon licenses" like simple declarations. Seems to me that any way you go, it's best to use one of the well known permissive licenses over something ad hoc.
On February 18, 2016 11:29:44 AM EST, Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
On 02/18/2016 07:12 AM, Martin Burnicki wrote:
after download you still can't be sure the file has not been modified. The included SHA1 hash can be generated by anyone
I wouldn't worry about this. We generate our own checksums for the entire tzdata distribution including the leap-seconds file, and sign them.
The main problem here is legal, not technical.
I agree with Tony that the EUPL is not suitable for the tz project. It's a pain to use the EUPL even with GPLed code (e.g., GNU/Linux), much less BSD (e.g., FreeBSD). We need something more like public-domain or 3-clause BSD, both of which we already use. Public domain is preferable
because it's simpler. CC0 would also be OK, I expect.
If this turns into a legal hassle for the IERS, as I suspect it will, then it's not worth their trouble. We'll just keep doing what we have been doing, or something like it. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: APG v1.1.1
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On 2016-02-18 14:09, Arthur David Olson wrote:
Ultimately the language added gets decided by the IERS; we needn't necessarily make a decision. We might identify options (concise, verbose, by reference, or otherwise) that work for us and present those options to the IERS for their consideration.
Since the IERS published leap-seconds.list, copyright status and IPR treaties could be preventing NIST from creating a derived work, which could perhaps be resolved more quickly by your suggested input to IERS. -- Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Yes, I agree. I'm just wondering why the reluctance about CC-0. According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons_license#Zero_.2F_public_domai...), it was originally designed to facilitate free sharing of scientific data, which is essentially the use case here. Unfortunately, I think most of the problems with public domain / CC-0 is in Europe (see, e.g. http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-community/2014-October/008866.html about how in Norway works in the Public Domain are subject to a levy). To the extent that it's possible, the best situation would probably be a dual license between CC-0 and something equivalent to CC-BY (MIT, BSD, etc.), so that in countries where it's better to use the data under a slightly more restrictive license, you can do that. Presumably IERS has some sort of legal counsel that can sort things out, though. In my experience, it's a real nightmare to affirmatively discharge all your copyrights in something in a way that doesn't come back to bite you in some jurisdiction. On 2016年02月18日 16:09, Arthur David Olson wrote:
Ultimately the language added gets decided by the IERS; we needn't necessarily make a decision. We might identify options (concise, verbose, by reference, or otherwise) that work for us and present those options to the IERS for their consideration.
@dashdashado
On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 12:04 PM, Paul G <paul@ganssle.io <mailto:paul@ganssle.io>> wrote:
Isn't CC0 designed specifically for this sort of situation? It's public domain with a fallback for jurisdictions where that concept doesn't exist.
I've always been warned against using "crayon licenses" like simple declarations. Seems to me that any way you go, it's best to use one of the well known permissive licenses over something ad hoc.
On February 18, 2016 11:29:44 AM EST, Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu <mailto:eggert@cs.ucla.edu>> wrote:
On 02/18/2016 07:12 AM, Martin Burnicki wrote:
after download you still can't be sure the file has not been modified. The included SHA1 hash can be generated by anyone
I wouldn't worry about this. We generate our own checksums for the entire tzdata distribution including the leap-seconds file, and sign them.
The main problem here is legal, not technical.
I agree with Tony that the EUPL is not suitable for the tz project. It's a pain to use the EUPL even with GPLed code (e.g., GNU/Linux), much less BSD (e.g., FreeBSD). We need something more like public-domain or 3-clause BSD, both of which we already use. Public domain is preferable
because it's simpler. CC0 would also be OK, I expect.
If this turns into a legal hassle for the IERS, as I suspect it will, then it's not worth their trouble. We'll just keep doing what we have been doing, or something like it.
On 2016-02-18 15:18, Paul G wrote:
Yes, I agree. I'm just wondering why the reluctance about CC-0. According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons_license#Zero_.2F_public_domai...), it was originally designed to facilitate free sharing of scientific data, which is essentially the use case here. Unfortunately, I think most of the problems with public domain / CC-0 is in Europe (see, e.g. http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-community/2014-October/008866.html about how in Norway works in the Public Domain are subject to a levy). To the extent that it's possible, the best situation would probably be a dual license between CC-0 and something equivalent to CC-BY (MIT, BSD, etc.), so that in countries where it's better to use the data under a slightly more restrictive license, you can do that. Presumably IERS has some sort of legal counsel that can sort things out, though. In my experience, it's a real nightmare to affirmatively discharge all your copyrights in something in a way that doesn't come back to bite you in some jurisdiction.
Ouch - good catch - so Norway, Spain, and perhaps by now South Africa and other governments, can assign the ownership of all Public Domain works to collection societies, who can then levy charges! In most jurisdictions, there are levies or taxes on various products, media, and operations (e.g. photocopying, printing) to cover mooted royalty losses to legal (and illegal, where that applies) "copying", which I would expect to cover these marginal cases. How could this even impact freely created software and data, freely distributed electronically and globally? I suspect folks chasing this money would be extremely disappointed if ubiquitous electronic monitoring were employed to count all of the actual occurrences of violations claimed to their rights, that are not covered by fair use regulations. My guess would be that their claims are all worst case scenarios: actual prevalence between 1-50% of those claims, and financial losses worth about 1% of that number; likely a lot less than any commercial product promotional budget, which includes giving away a lot of product. -- Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Hi all, Martin Burnicki wrote:
I've now contacted the IERS folks and asked them to add some copyright information.
I've just received a reply from Christian Bizouard, the new head of the IERS Earth Orientation Center. He agrees with my proposal to add a copyright notice to the IERS leap second file, which expresses that the file can freely be copied, and asks for a proposal for an appropriate wording. I'm also not neither too familiar with legal stuff concerning copyright, nor is English my native language, so eventually someone can propose a simple sentence which can be added to the leap second file. Thanks, Martin -- Martin Burnicki MEINBERG Funkuhren GmbH & Co. KG Email: martin.burnicki@meinberg.de Phone: +49 (0)5281 9309-14 Fax: +49 (0)5281 9309-30 Lange Wand 9, 31812 Bad Pyrmont, Germany Amtsgericht Hannover 17HRA 100322 Geschäftsführer/Managing Directors: Günter Meinberg, Werner Meinberg, Andre Hartmann, Heiko Gerstung Web: http://www.meinberg.de
I want to say https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/CC0 is the answer, but it appears to require a lot more than a "simple sentence," so I am now pretty unsure. --jhawk@mit.edu John Hawkinson Martin Burnicki <martin.burnicki@meinberg.de> wrote on Thu, 18 Feb 2016 at 00:22:59 +0100 in <56C500D3.2060206@meinberg.de>:
He agrees with my proposal to add a copyright notice to the IERS leap second file, which expresses that the file can freely be copied, and asks for a proposal for an appropriate wording.
I'm also not neither too familiar with legal stuff concerning copyright, nor is English my native language, so eventually someone can propose a simple sentence which can be added to the leap second file.
On 2016-02-17 16:29, John Hawkinson wrote:
I want to say https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/CC0 is the answer, but it appears to require a lot more than a "simple sentence," so I am now pretty unsure.
Got the same reservations myself, and implications are unclear, despite dealing with corporate and vendor software and service contracts and agreements for decades.
Martin Burnicki <martin.burnicki@meinberg.de> wrote on Thu, 18 Feb 2016 at 00:22:59 +0100 in <56C500D3.2060206@meinberg.de>:
He agrees with my proposal to add a copyright notice to the IERS leap second file, which expresses that the file can freely be copied, and asks for a proposal for an appropriate wording.
I'm also not neither too familiar with legal stuff concerning copyright, nor is English my native language, so eventually someone can propose a simple sentence which can be added to the leap second file.
EUPL - European Union Public Licence - recommended for EU/government software and content in the "public domain": https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/eupl/og_page/european-union-public-lic... "European Union Public Licence ... The Original Work is provided under the terms of this Licence when the Licensor (as defined below) has placed the following notice immediately following the copyright notice for the Original Work: Licensed under the EUPL" and maybe a copy of the above link, which provides the document in 22 EU languages. -- Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Brian Inglis <Brian.Inglis@systematicsw.ab.ca> wrote:
On 2016-02-17 16:29, John Hawkinson wrote:
I want to say https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/CC0 is the answer, but it appears to require a lot more than a "simple sentence," so I am now pretty unsure.
Got the same reservations myself, and implications are unclear, despite dealing with corporate and vendor software and service contracts and agreements for decades.
I apply CC0 to my work with this declaration: * You may do anything with this. It has no warranty. * <http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/> I have not got a lawyer to confirm that this is an acceptable summary of the licence :-)
EUPL - European Union Public Licence - recommended for EU/government software and content in the "public domain": https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/eupl/og_page/european-union-public-lic...
Note that this is a copyleft licence so probably too demanding for use by the tz project. Tony. -- f.anthony.n.finch <dot@dotat.at> http://dotat.at/ Trafalgar: North or northwest 5 to 7. Rough or very rough. Rain or showers. Moderate or good.
On 2016-02-18 05:15, Tony Finch wrote:
Brian Inglis <Brian.Inglis@systematicsw.ab.ca> wrote:
On 2016-02-17 16:29, John Hawkinson wrote:
I want to say https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/CC0 is the answer, but it appears to require a lot more than a "simple sentence," so I am now pretty unsure.
Got the same reservations myself, and implications are unclear, despite dealing with corporate and vendor software and service contracts and agreements for decades.
I apply CC0 to my work with this declaration:
* You may do anything with this. It has no warranty. * <http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/>
I have not got a lawyer to confirm that this is an acceptable summary of the licence :-)
EUPL - European Union Public Licence - recommended for EU/government software and content in the "public domain": https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/eupl/og_page/european-union-public-lic...
Note that this is a copyleft licence so probably too demanding for use by the tz project.
It is the closest European licence to public domain and allows all uses for all purposes, including deriving and sublicensing. The Copyleft Clause is unfortunately named but serves only to ensure the terms of the licence may not be restricted in copies or derivations. It does not appear to be a GNU copyleft which restricts uses. -- Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
On Thu, Feb 18, 2016, at 14:08, Brian Inglis wrote:
It is the closest European licence to public domain and allows all uses for all purposes, including deriving and sublicensing. The Copyleft Clause is unfortunately named but serves only to ensure the terms of the licence may not be restricted in copies or derivations. It does not appear to be a GNU copyleft which restricts uses.
I think you're confused about what the GNU copyleft is if you think this is a coherent statement. The GNU copyleft _exactly_ "ensures the terms of the license may not be restricted in copies or derivations", I don't know what else you think it "restricts uses". The problem is that this prevents a work (or portions thereof) covered by the license from being incorporated in a larger work that has components under restrictive licenses (such as commercial UNIX derivatives)
On 2016-02-18 13:32, Random832 wrote:
On Thu, Feb 18, 2016, at 14:08, Brian Inglis wrote:
It is the closest European licence to public domain and allows all uses for all purposes, including deriving and sublicensing. The Copyleft Clause is unfortunately named but serves only to ensure the terms of the licence may not be restricted in copies or derivations. It does not appear to be a GNU copyleft which restricts uses.
I think you're confused about what the GNU copyleft is if you think this is a coherent statement. The GNU copyleft _exactly_ "ensures the terms of the license may not be restricted in copies or derivations", I don't know what else you think it "restricts uses". The problem is that this prevents a work (or portions thereof) covered by the license from being incorporated in a larger work that has components under restrictive licenses (such as commercial UNIX derivatives)
Which is a restriction not in the BSD licences and public domain works. Note that I am not suggesting this licence for tz, just for IERS leap-seconds.list, as approval of EUPL would likely be easier than alternatives in EU organizations. Likewise, the tz leapseconds would only require the same one-liner, and perhaps also the URL. For CC0, something like the following is suggested, which appears more onerous than just the EUPL statement and perhaps URL: "IERS leap-seconds.list (c) Copyright 2016 Earth Orientation Center, IERS, Paris Observatory, France Christian Bizouard, christian.bizouard@obspm.fr Daniel Gambis, daniel.gambis@obspm.fr To the extent possible under law, the author(s) have dedicated all copyright and related and neighboring rights to this software to the public domain worldwide. This software is distributed without any warranty. You should have received a copy of the CC0 Public Domain Dedication along with this software. If not, see <http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/>." "It is also recommended that you include a file called COPYING (or COPYING.txt) containing the CC0 legalcode as plain text." -- Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
On Thu, Feb 18, 2016, at 16:59, Brian Inglis wrote:
On 2016-02-18 13:32, Random832 wrote:
On Thu, Feb 18, 2016, at 14:08, Brian Inglis wrote:
It is the closest European licence to public domain and allows all uses for all purposes, including deriving and sublicensing. The Copyleft Clause is unfortunately named but serves only to ensure the terms of the licence may not be restricted in copies or derivations. It does not appear to be a GNU copyleft which restricts uses.
I think you're confused about what the GNU copyleft is if you think this is a coherent statement. The GNU copyleft _exactly_ "ensures the terms of the license may not be restricted in copies or derivations", I don't know what else you think it "restricts uses". The problem is that this prevents a work (or portions thereof) covered by the license from being incorporated in a larger work that has components under restrictive licenses (such as commercial UNIX derivatives)
Which is a restriction not in the BSD licences and public domain works.
Right, but it _is_ in the EUPL. All I'm saying is that you haven't actually articulated what difference you believe exists between "GNU copyleft" and EUPL copyleft.
On Feb 17, 2016, at 5:22 PM, Martin Burnicki <martin.burnicki@meinberg.de> wrote:
I'm also not neither too familiar with legal stuff concerning copyright, nor is English my native language, so eventually someone can propose a simple sentence which can be added to the leap second file.
Perhaps one of the Creative Commons licenses? https://creativecommons.org/choose/
Martin Burnicki said:
I've just received a reply from Christian Bizouard, the new head of the IERS Earth Orientation Center.
Well done.
He agrees with my proposal to add a copyright notice to the IERS leap second file, which expresses that the file can freely be copied, and asks for a proposal for an appropriate wording.
I'm also not neither too familiar with legal stuff concerning copyright, nor is English my native language, so eventually someone can propose a simple sentence which can be added to the leap second file.
Try: "The copyright holder grants permission for any person to publish copies of this file without royalty or other payment provided that any such copy is of the complete file without alterations and is accompanied by the URL of this original file." -- Clive D.W. Feather | If you lie to the compiler, Email: clive@davros.org | it will get its revenge. Web: http://www.davros.org | - Henry Spencer Mobile: +44 7973 377646
On 17 February 2016 at 18:56, Clive D.W. Feather <clive@davros.org> wrote:
Try:
"The copyright holder grants permission for any person to publish copies of this file without royalty or other payment provided that any such copy is of the complete file without alterations and is accompanied by the URL of this original file."
That's probably a good start. My only suggestion would be to replace "accompanied by the URL of this original file." with "accompanied by the URL of *the* original file*, which is <url>*." to further assist those reproducing the file in complying with the statement's requirements. -- Tim Parenti
Tim Parenti wrote:
On 17 February 2016 at 18:56, Clive D.W. Feather <clive@davros.org <mailto:clive@davros.org>> wrote:
Try:
"The copyright holder grants permission for any person to publish copies of this file without royalty or other payment provided that any such copy is of the complete file without alterations and is accompanied by the URL of this original file."
That's probably a good start. My only suggestion would be to replace "accompanied by the URL of this original file." with "accompanied by the URL of *the* original file*, which is <url>*." to further assist those reproducing the file in complying with the statement's requirements.
Agreed. I'm still wondering why it is so hard to say, "here is the file I've created, do with it what you want". ;-) Martin -- Martin Burnicki Senior Software Engineer MEINBERG Funkuhren GmbH & Co. KG Email: martin.burnicki@meinberg.de Phone: +49 (0)5281 9309-14 Fax: +49 (0)5281 9309-30 Lange Wand 9, 31812 Bad Pyrmont, Germany Amtsgericht Hannover 17HRA 100322 Geschäftsführer/Managing Directors: Günter Meinberg, Werner Meinberg, Andre Hartmann, Heiko Gerstung Web: http://www.meinberg.de
On 2016-02-18 08:15, Martin Burnicki wrote:
Tim Parenti wrote:
On 17 February 2016 at 18:56, Clive D.W. Feather <clive@davros.org <mailto:clive@davros.org>> wrote:
Try:
"The copyright holder grants permission for any person to publish copies of this file without royalty or other payment provided that any such copy is of the complete file without alterations and is accompanied by the URL of this original file."
That's probably a good start. My only suggestion would be to replace "accompanied by the URL of this original file." with "accompanied by the URL of *the* original file*, which is <url>*." to further assist those reproducing the file in complying with the statement's requirements.
Agreed. I'm still wondering why it is so hard to say, "here is the file I've created, do with it what you want". ;-)
AIUI Civil codes statutory property rights and EU law. -- Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Martin Burnicki <martin.burnicki@meinberg.de> writes:
Agreed. I'm still wondering why it is so hard to say, "here is the file I've created, do with it what you want". ;-)
Years of legal effort by (mostly, but not exclusively) corporations to make copyright restrictions the expected default, following the discovery that a lot of valuable property entered the public domain because someone didn't follow the precise (and varying-by-country) legal forms to ensure that it didn't. It's frustrating for our purposes, but some of the stories of the loss of rights and, subsequently, money in the pre-Berne era from people like mid-list fiction authors who failed to follow the right legal procedure or who got tricked into signing very bad contracts are pretty compelling. The law was written in consideration of those people, not for software or for files like this, so it applies rather awkwardly. -- Russ Allbery (eagle@eyrie.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
On 02/17/2016 03:22 PM, Martin Burnicki wrote:
someone can propose a simple sentence which can be added to the leap second file.
How about the attached patch? It's the simplest and shortest sentence I can think of that would work for us. CC0 would also work for us technically, though it's not as simple to word. The sentence that Clive D.W. Feather proposed is problematic, as it might easily be construed to forbid the processing that our Makefile needs to do with the file. We need something that clearly says it's OK for us to take the leap-second data in the file and do whatever we want with it.
On 17 February 2016 at 19:09, Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
How about the attached patch? It's the simplest and shortest sentence I can think of that would work for us.
As Clive pointed out in http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/2016-February/023183.html, "public domain" is a US-specific construct. Even if it's fairly clear to those outside the US what it means, we should probably use something more broadly applicable, or simply clarify a bit further, e.g., "This file is in the public domain and may be freely used for any purpose."
The sentence that Clive D.W. Feather proposed is problematic, as it might easily be construed to forbid the processing that our Makefile needs to do with the file. We need something that clearly says it's OK for us to take the leap-second data in the file and do whatever we want with it.
Good point. -- Tim Parenti
On 02/17/2016 04:16 PM, Tim Parenti wrote:
"public domain" is a US-specific construct.
Yes, and that suffices for us, as we're publishing in the US. That is, if a document gives us notice that the document is public-domain in the US, that's good enough for us.
"This file is in the public domain and may be freely used for any purpose."
This sentence would also be fine.
On 17 February 2016 at 19:30, Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
On 02/17/2016 04:16 PM, Tim Parenti wrote:
"public domain" is a US-specific construct.
Yes, and that suffices for us, as we're publishing in the US.
Others downloading the file from us and using our scripts to munge it might not be, though, hence my slightly more wordy suggestion. -- Tim Parenti
On 02/17/2016 04:31 PM, Tim Parenti wrote:
Others downloading the file from us and using our scripts to munge it might not be, though
Sure, but these other people are already downloading many public-domain files from us and are are using our code and scripts to munge them, so making this new leap-second file public-domain won't give these other people problems that they don't already have. This is why a public-domain license is the simplest solution for us and our users.
On 2016-02-17 17:30, Paul Eggert wrote:
On 02/17/2016 04:16 PM, Tim Parenti wrote:
"public domain" is a US-specific construct.
Yes, and that suffices for us, as we're publishing in the US. That is, if a document gives us notice that the document is public-domain in the US, that's good enough for us.
"This file is in the public domain and may be freely used for any purpose." This sentence would also be fine.
AIUI by US law all documents are copyrighted, and via international trade agreements, can not be copied in any signatory jurisdiction, without a waiver or grant of rights. AIUI in many jurisdictions e.g. EU, copyrights can not be waived, rights must be granted. -- Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
On 17 February 2016 at 19:50, Brian Inglis <Brian.Inglis@systematicsw.ab.ca> wrote:
AIUI in many jurisdictions e.g. EU, copyrights can not be waived, rights must be granted.
If this is the case, then "This file is in the public domain and may be freely used for any purpose." would likely be sufficient to explicitly grant those rights to us. On 17 February 2016 at 19:35, Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
Sure, but these other people are already downloading many public-domain files from us and are are using our code and scripts to munge them
A fair point; all we need are the rights to distribute it, and since the above is a superset of the permissions we grant when passing along our files, it introduces no other issue. -- Tim Parenti
Tim Parenti wrote:
This file is in the public domain and may be freely used for any purpose.
Good idea, IMO, easy to understand for everybody and doesn't imply any restriction AFAICS. Martin -- Martin Burnicki Senior Software Engineer MEINBERG Funkuhren GmbH & Co. KG Email: martin.burnicki@meinberg.de Phone: +49 (0)5281 9309-14 Fax: +49 (0)5281 9309-30 Lange Wand 9, 31812 Bad Pyrmont, Germany Amtsgericht Hannover 17HRA 100322 Geschäftsführer/Managing Directors: Günter Meinberg, Werner Meinberg, Andre Hartmann, Heiko Gerstung Web: http://www.meinberg.de
Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> writes:
On 02/17/2016 04:16 PM, Tim Parenti wrote:
"This file is in the public domain and may be freely used for any purpose."
This sentence would also be fine.
There was some discussion of this in the past in the IETF, and a consultation with ISOC legal counsel resulted in the recommendation of the following text for people to put on RFCs if they didn't want to use the regular copyright notice and wanted to grant freedom to change the file in any way. Here's the message that was sent to the FTP Extensions working group at the time, which includes some additional context and the recommended license text. It's a single sentence, if a long one: | The other issue is the document that you have posted to FTP Extensions. | The legal counsel that we have been given indicates that the best way | you can achieve your goal is to assert, in the draft boilerplate, that | the document conforms to, or, the lawyer suggests, "is subject to", the | provisions of RFC 2026 section 10. You may go further, if you wish, to | immediately thereafter say | | "In addition, the authors (on behalf of themselves and their | employers) hereby relinquish any claim to any copyright that they | may have in this work, whether granted under contract or by | operation of law or international treaty, and hereby commit to the | public, at large, that they shall not, at any time in the future, | seek to enforce any copyright in this work against any person or | entity, or prevent any person or entity from copying, publishing, | distributing or creating derivative works of this work." | | In doing this, you leave the ISOC copyright there, which asserts that | the ISOC has your permission to publish the document in the RFC archive, | and protects it from unauthorized modifications or claims. Doing so, | according to our counsel '...is as close to a "contribution to the | public" that we can get'. My understanding of the legal mechanism behind this statement is that it attempts to establish via estoppel the effect of public domain even in legal regimes that don't have that concept. -- Russ Allbery (eagle@eyrie.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
On 2016-02-17 19:29, Russ Allbery wrote:
Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu> writes:
On 02/17/2016 04:16 PM, Tim Parenti wrote:
| "In addition, the authors (on behalf of themselves and their | employers) hereby relinquish any claim to any copyright that they | may have in this work, whether granted under contract or by | operation of law or international treaty, and hereby commit to the | public, at large, that they shall not, at any time in the future, | seek to enforce any copyright in this work against any person or | entity, or prevent any person or entity from copying, publishing, | distributing or creating derivative works of this work."
My understanding of the legal mechanism behind this statement is that it attempts to establish via estoppel the effect of public domain even in legal regimes that don't have that concept.
This does not seem to apply to civil law regimes which do not have the concept of estoppel e.g. Scotland, Quebec, continental Europe, about 2/3 of the world, where property rights are statutory so cannot be relinquished or waived but can only be granted to others. This is limited depending on the statutes in each jurisdiction, both civil and common law, where harm may need to be proved, and may have to be wilful, or if negligent, in a statutory regulated profession or trade: so most students, academics, software developers may be okay, but e.g. engineers could be liable under some conditions. IANAL but between contracts and Groklaw, learned "stuff I shouldn't need to know" (tm) I am sure many of us feel this way nowadays about patents, IPR, and licensing. -- Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Brian Inglis <Brian.Inglis@systematicsw.ab.ca> writes:
This does not seem to apply to civil law regimes which do not have the concept of estoppel e.g. Scotland, Quebec, continental Europe, about 2/3 of the world, where property rights are statutory so cannot be relinquished or waived but can only be granted to others.
Well, that language does kind of try to do both. But yeah. I'm not sure there's a great way to word this, which is why CC0 is so long. This is the only shorter text I'm personally aware of that came from an actual lawyer, which is why I always hung on to it. -- Russ Allbery (eagle@eyrie.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
Brian Inglis <Brian.Inglis@systematicsw.ab.ca> writes:
My understanding of the legal mechanism behind this statement is that it attempts to establish via estoppel the effect of public domain even in legal regimes that don't have that concept. This does not seem to apply to civil law regimes which do not have the concept of estoppel e.g. Scotland, [...]
There's a really interesting discussion of the differences between English and Scots law in terms of how you construct a public-domain-ish license by Andrew Katz (who is a lawyer, although I'm not) in the UK chapter of "The International FOSS Law Book", available from <http://ifosslawbook.org/uk/>. He writes: | [Scots law, following Roman law recognises the binding legal effect of | a unilateral promise without further formality] ... | | Scots Law does not require there to be consideration before there can | be a contract, so there would be no need to invoke principles of | personal bar [Personal bar is the equivalent principle in Scotland to | estoppel in England]. However, since a simple unilateral promise would | be effective in Scots Law, there seems little point in venturing into | the additional complications of bilateral contracts with a ius | quaesitum tertio. The other chapters of the book discuss the same question under other legal systems, where the answer appears to be even less straightforward... -- Adam Sampson <ats@offog.org> <http://offog.org/>
Tim Parenti wrote:
this sounds like the kind of thing that might perhaps be solved by a simple request.
As I recall the IERS was asked a while ago, with no definite response yet. French copyright law is a funny thing, not to mention international bureaucracy, and it's possible we'll be stuck with using a non-IERS file indefinitely. I hope the NIST can maintain a leap-second file in a timely fashion; otherwise we'd have to do it ourselves, and then the world might have *three* files where one should suffice....
On Mon 2016-02-15T21:38:59 -0800, Paul Eggert hath writ:
As I recall the IERS was asked a while ago, with no definite response yet.
French copyright law is a funny thing, not to mention international bureaucracy, and it's possible we'll be stuck with using a non-IERS file indefinitely. I hope the NIST can maintain a leap-second file in a timely fashion; otherwise we'd have to do it ourselves, and then the world might have *three* files where one should suffice....
The fifteen year long leap second fiasco in the ITU-R has resulted in a situation where US experts are constrained not to communicate anything which has not been cleared by Department of State, and I suppose similar scenarios exist elsewhere. -- Steve Allen <sla@ucolick.org> WGS-84 (GPS) UCO/Lick Observatory--ISB Natural Sciences II, Room 165 Lat +36.99855 1156 High Street Voice: +1 831 459 3046 Lng -122.06015 Santa Cruz, CA 95064 http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/ Hgt +250 m
On Feb 15, 2016, at 1:29 PM, Arthur David Olson <arthurdavidolson@gmail.com> wrote:
Paul Eggert in... http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/tzdist/current/msg01135.html ... from 2014-12-17 notes that "...the IERS file is copyrighted. That is why the tz database reproduces the NIST file (the NIST file is public domain). Other distributors of the IERS file might want to keep this in mind."
Unless the copyright situation has changed since then...
I don't understand that. NIST can't change some other organization's copyright by redistributing the data. Then again, I don't see how copyright can be valid on a list of leap seconds -- facts are not covered by copyright. I don't see any mention of copyright on the IERS website. It would of course be desirable for it to give an explicit statement saying copyright does not apply (at least not to its bulletins). paul
On 15 February 2016 at 14:00, <Paul_Koning@dell.com> wrote:
I don't see how copyright can be valid on a list of leap seconds -- facts are not covered by copyright.
I think most on this list are well aware of that. ;) The concern here, though, is more with the associated commentary, which varies greatly between the NIST and IERS files.
I don't see any mention of copyright on the IERS website. It would of course be desirable for it to give an explicit statement saying copyright does not apply (at least not to its bulletins).
At least in the US, copyright exists by default (at least for copyrightable portions of works). Even without that, it's better to err on the side of caution. This is part of why we've gone out of *our* way to explicitly state that tz files are public domain; I'd expect that a similar arrangement might be feasible here. -- Tim Parenti
Paul_Koning@dell.com said:
I don't understand that. NIST can't change some other organization's copyright by redistributing the data. Then again, I don't see how copyright can be valid on a list of leap seconds -- facts are not covered by copyright.
Actually, it's not that simple. In particular, the law in the US and the law in France on this topic are not the same. It is possible to copyright collections of facts. Furthermore, if you copy the IERS bulletin directly, you aren't just copying the facts, you're copying the expression of them. That's a breach of their copyright. -- Clive D.W. Feather | If you lie to the compiler, Email: clive@davros.org | it will get its revenge. Web: http://www.davros.org | - Henry Spencer Mobile: +44 7973 377646
Hello Tim and others on the list, just wanted to let you know that I obviously missed some emails from the tz list, including the one I'm currently replying to. Just saw in our local email archive that there were more comments in this thread than I saw in my inbox, an I'm currently trying to find out why some emails didn't get through. Martin Tim Parenti wrote:
On 15 Feb 2016 11:39, Martin Burnicki wrote:
please note the NIST leap-second file at ftp://time.nist.gov/pub/ has not yet been updated according to IERS bulletin C 51. It's still the version which has been published in July 2015, and will expire in June 2016.
I saw that also tzdata2016a.tar.gz which has been published 2016-01-26 still contains the old leap second file even though bulletin C 51 has already been published 2016-01-11. I had the same thought.
I prepared the attached patch which uses the file from IERS shortly after the 2016-01-11 announcement, but was sitting on it while we waited for NIST, since the conversation at the time seemed to indicate that NIST was our preferred source. I think, though, that since IERS actually decides the leap seconds and seems to be updating their file more promptly, it might be worthwhile to consider switching to IERS as our canonical source for this file.
-- Tim Parenti
-- Martin Burnicki Senior Software Engineer MEINBERG Funkuhren GmbH & Co. KG Email: martin.burnicki@meinberg.de Phone: +49 (0)5281 9309-14 Fax: +49 (0)5281 9309-30 Lange Wand 9, 31812 Bad Pyrmont, Germany Amtsgericht Hannover 17HRA 100322 Geschäftsführer/Managing Directors: Günter Meinberg, Werner Meinberg, Andre Hartmann, Heiko Gerstung Web: http://www.meinberg.de
Martin Burnicki wrote:
Hi all,
please note the NIST leap-second file at ftp://time.nist.gov/pub/ has not yet been updated according to IERS bulletin C 51. It's still the version which has been published in July 2015, and will expire in June 2016.
I saw that also tzdata2016a.tar.gz which has been published 2016-01-26 still contains the old leap second file even though bulletin C 51 has already been published 2016-01-11.
I've dropped Judah Levine a similar note, but eventually you can include the IERS version of the file into the TZ DB distribution. The IERS file has already been updated and expires 2016-12-28.
I just saw that the leap second file from NIST has also been updated now. According to a note from Judah Levine the file is available via FTP from all public NTP servers listed here: http://tf.nist.gov/tf-cgi/servers.cgi Martin -- Martin Burnicki Senior Software Engineer MEINBERG Funkuhren GmbH & Co. KG Email: martin.burnicki@meinberg.de Phone: +49 (0)5281 9309-14 Fax: +49 (0)5281 9309-30 Lange Wand 9, 31812 Bad Pyrmont, Germany Amtsgericht Hannover 17HRA 100322 Geschäftsführer/Managing Directors: Günter Meinberg, Werner Meinberg, Andre Hartmann, Heiko Gerstung Web: http://www.meinberg.de
Thanks, I installed the attached patch into the experimental version on github, where you can see the current leap-second file here: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/eggert/tz/master/leap-seconds.list This should appear in the next tzdata release. I don't know when that will be yet, but sometime in the next month no doubt.
participants (17)
-
Adam Sampson -
Adam Vartanian -
Arthur David Olson -
Brian Inglis -
Clive D.W. Feather -
John Hawkinson -
Martin Burnicki -
Martin Burnicki -
Paul Eggert -
Paul G -
Paul_Koning＠dell.com -
Random832 -
Russ Allbery -
Scott Nelson -
Steve Allen -
Tim Parenti -
Tony Finch