The Globus Project is a collaborative effort between a limited number of institutional partners predominantly based in the United States. Undoubtedly, the Globus approach becomes more difficult to emulate as the size and complexity of the collaboration increases.
Direct Applicability
Many e-Science projects may be able to manage their intellectual property on the same terms as the Globus Project – specifically those projects that are organised as a collaboration between a limited number of institutes within the United Kingdom, and for which the code has to be developed from scratch or contains easily replaced GPL-ed code. It is however an open question whether this strategy should be actively encouraged by funding agencies, as there is a danger of premature convergence on standards whose ramifications are not fully understood. The implications of the GNU GPL by comparison, are far more thoroughly understood by those in the software industry (despite the continued emission of a certain amount of strategic dis-information by firms and organisations opposing the free and open source software movement).
In collaborations that really on a big number of collaborators from all over the world, the licensing approach adopted by the Globus Project is unlikely to be feasible.
Similar Approaches
One important lesson illustrated by the Globus Project case is that there is no necessity to stick with the IPR regime that is codified in law. It is perfectly possible to amend copyright and patent right with contracts, when some effort can be invested in the process and when project co-ordinators are endowed with some power to set the terms.
The development of novel licensing forms to meet particular circumstances is not inconsistent with the procedural recommendations developed in this report. On the other hand, the multiplication of many variant forms to meet special circumstances about which other potential users may have little or no experience-based information is a serious drawback of a laissez-faire approach in this regard.
Multiple Jurisdictions
A final complication worthy of notice arises when collaborations span multiple jurisdictions. In case of the Globus Project, copyright and patent right is defined in the U.S. at the federal level. Still, the fact that collaborators are working in different states may cause a problem when the validity of the Grant of License in Globus Toolkit Contributions is disputed because contract law is decided upon on the state level.
Despite devolution, the United Kingdom is still so centralised that similar problems within pure United Kingdom e-Science projects are unlikely to occur. Nevertheless, some problems are almost certain to arise when the United Kingdom e-Science project involves a partner from the United States, especially when databases are involved. Within the European Union, traditions on copyrights and patents diverge and directives are not implemented uniformly. In addition, there are big differences among member-states in the extent to which contracts are allowed to override the statutory limitations on copyright [Guibault, 2002]
The way the Globus Project manages IPR, its BSD-like license and demand for explicit contributor consent, is interesting and justifiable in the circumstances in which this novel license was designed. It is evidently the (intermediate) outcome of a process of give and take between the project's partners.
Therefore, it is important to note, first, that there is rather more symmetry between the resources of the Globus Project at Argonne and its principal industrial partners (IBM and Oracle) than is likely to obtain in the case of a typical university-based e-Science project.
Secondly, the Globus Project is essentially a monolithic organisation that has funded the development of the software, and its partners have entered to handle the distribution of the code. Whether or not e-Science projects will be able to emulate this approach depends on their characteristics.
A similar approach may work for some of the more highly unified among the larger e-Science pilot projects, but it is likely to provide more difficult in more ambitious and complex multi-institution collaborations.
References for Appendix 4
Allan, R. J., Boyd, D. R. S., Folks, T., Greenough, C., Hanlon, D., Middleton, R. P.,
Sansum, R. A., Mourao, Elson, Baxter, Rob, Henty, David, Brooke, Parsons, Mark John, Hewitt, W. T., Daw, Mike, MacLaren, Jon, Gibson, Jon, Riley, Graham & Pickles, Stephen, 'Globus and Associated Grid
Middleware – Consolidated Evaluation Report from UKHEC Sites', Tech rep., CLRC e-Science Centre, http://esc.dl.ac.uk/TechReports/consolidate/consolidate/node25.html (2001).
Bollinger, Terry, 'Use of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in the U.S. Department of Defense', Presentation for "IT Applications "Community of Practice" at USAID – Third Meeting" (2002).
Bollinger, Terry, 'Use of Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS) in the U.S. Department of Defense', MITRE Report MP 02 W0000101, The MITRE Corporation, http://www.disa.mil/pao/dodfoss.html;
http://www.egovos.org/pdf/dodfoss.pdf (2003).
Guibault, Lucie M. C. R., Copyright limitations and contracts : an analysis of the contractual overridability of limitations on copyright (The Hague: Kluwer Law, 2002).
University of Chicago and The University of Southern California, 'Globus Toolkit Public License', Version 2 (2003).
University of Chicago and The University of Southern California, 'Grant of License in Globus Toolkit Contributions', Prototype (2003).