[Biojava-l] How to share code while protecting copyrights?

[Mark Schreiber]

Hi -

My understanding of copyright is that it is yours as soon as you assert that
it is your creation. You can simply add a copyright statement to each file
containing the code (in the header for example). The reality is that
defending copyright is your responsibility. If someone violates it, you have
to take them to court or issue a legal letter.

You can also put an appropriate license on the code specifying how it can be
used. Examples include GPL, LGPL, BSD, Apache License etc. You can pick one
of these that best matches your needs. BioJava code is LGPL so if you want
your code to go into the BioJava code base you will need to make your code
LGPL.

It's always a good idea to add @author tags to Java code to ensure
appropriate attribution.

Finally, if someone steals your code and publishes results before you then
you can always make a complaint to the journal editors. If it is a reputable
journal, and you have reasonable proof the editor should take some action
such as forcing a retraction.  You can also make a distribution agreement
saying that if someone uses this code they agree not to publish without
first consulting you.

If you want to make it really water tight, get a lawyer and explain
specifically what you want to share and what you want to protect or prevent.

- Mark

On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 11:41 PM, McSweeny, Andrew J <
andrew.mcsweeny at rockets.utoledo.edu> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I am working on a project which simulates sexual reproduction in a
> population of digital organisms.  Their genome is just a contig from hg18.
>  It's pretty interesting and I can talk more about it in the future....
>
> Anyways, how can I share my code for this project without having to worry
> that someone else will use it to publish a paper before my group does?
>
> I'm certain nobody in the open source community would do that, but how do I
> convince my group that opening our project to BioJava is a good idea?
>
> -Andrew
>
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