Reuse, licensing and legal aspects

Objective

To ensure proper software reuse and license compliance, it is essential to accurately describe software licensing and legal aspects. This includes providing clear guidance on proper usage and distribution rights, clarifying the terms and conditions under which the software can be used and shared.

Recommendations

RSMD-6.1

Essential ☆☆☆

Authors of the software SHOULD/MUST determine the right holders and check their institution’s policy before choosing a license. It is important to note that researchers are bound to their institution's policy regarding software licensing.

RSMD-6.2

Essential ☆☆☆

Add a License to the software source code as intrinsic metadata, following established best practices (e.g. SPDX license identifiers in file: headers, copy of the chosen license in a LICENSE* or in a LICENSES folder, see REUSE specification). file, README.

RSMD-6.3

Essential ☆☆☆

Add extrinsic metadata about the software license, copyright holders, and embargo end date on the metadata record.

RSMD-6.4

Important ☆☆

Identify external software modules used, their authors (right holders) and their licenses. For compliance purposes, it is necessary to verify licenses compatibility.

RSMD-6.5

Useful ☆

Add file headers the name of the software, year, copyright holder, contact information (email), license identifier (e.g. SPDX), authors (and information related to modification of authors ; e.g. author BB – Date WW, Author DD – Date UU) as specified in REUSE specifications).