[chimera-dev] Re: ANN: UCSF Chimera

[David E. Konerding]

Eric Pettersen wrote:

>
> On Tuesday, June 17, 2003, at 10:34  AM, Ethan Merritt wrote:
>
>> In article <20030609161925132-0700 at cgl.ucsf.edu> you write:
>>
>>> The UCSF Resource for Biocomputing, Visualization, and Informatics
>>> is pleased to announce the newest release of UCSF Chimera, an
>>> interactive molecular modeling system.  It is free to academic and
>>> non-profit users and is available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, IRIX,
>>> and Tru64 Unix.  It can be downloaded from 
>>> http://www.cgl.ucsf.edu/chimera
>>>
>>> Chimera has the capabilities common to many molecular graphics 
>>> programs,
>>> as well as a number of more unique features, including:
>>
>>
>> [snip]
>>
>>>   - Extensibility as a design principle, allowing users to create
>>>     custom modules without changing Chimera code.
>>
>>
>> This is unlikely to happen so long as Chimera is distributed with
>> such a restrictive license.
>>
>> The following 2 clauses pretty much kill my interest in developing any
>> software to work with Chimera.
>>
>> 3 The Licensee agrees that any modifications or derivative works based
>>   on the Software are considered part of the Software and the Licensee
>>   hereby assigns all copyright in all such modifications and derivative
>>   works to the Regents.
>>
>> 4 The Licensee shall not disclose in any form either the delivered
>>   Software or any modifications or derivative works based on the
>>   Software to third parties without prior written authorization from
>>   the Regents.
>>
>> This is a pity, since otherwise Chimera looks like an interesting
>> target for integrating a number of graphics projects I am involved in.
>
>
> I don't believe these clauses actually restrict your ownership or 
> ability to redistribute modules/extensions you develop for Chimera.  I 
> believe they restrict your ability to modify/redistribute the Chimera 
> source code itself.  Extensions don't require modification of Chimera 
> source code.  Nonetheless, I have cc'ed this reply to the head of our 
> lab, Tom Ferrin (tef at cgl.ucsf.edu), so he can hopefully confirm that 
> what I have said is indeed the case.  Certainly points 3 & 4 of the 
> license could be explicitly clarified to _not_ restrict 
> ownership/distribution of extensions.
>
> There are already two extensions being distributed by third parties 
> (SSD: ssd.rbvi.ucsf.edu; ViewFeature: 
> http://feature.stanford.edu/documentation.html) that I'm fairly 
> certain did not require written authorization by the Regents.


This issue needs to be clarified in the licensing document because the 
document itself does not refer to extensions or define the nature of 
derived work, and because since the Chimera source code is not currently 
distributed (thus, those clauses are fairly irrelevant to most 
developers who write chimera extensions).  It may be clear to the 
developers of Chimera whether extensions themselves are derivative, but 
it is not clear to an external user (as Ethan's message points out).  
The nature of extensions should be defined in the document because the 
idea of extension is conceptually core to Chimera and is the strongly 
preferred method of adding functionality to Chimera.  I suspect that the 
Chimera developers believe that runtime-binding of Chimera functionality 
from an extension (such as a Chimera module import), and use of the 
Chimera object model does not render an extension a derivative work.

Extensions such as SSD and ViewFeature which are independently 
distributed are not in any way "proof" that extensions are not 
derivatives.  It just means that the Regents have not llitigated against 
their independent distribution.  If the Regents do not litigate to 
ensure that extensions comply with the derivative clauses of the license 
agreement, then the license loses much of its legal foundation.  In 
other words, if you don't go to court to protect your intelletual 
property, then it's much easier for other people to use your 
intellectual property without crediting you.

Dave