[Insight-users] Reproducible results and semi-open science

[Andriy Fedorov]

Hi,

I am looking for some expert advice. Currently, there are pieces of
software, which allow academic and research use royalty-free. With
such software, reproducibility is still important, I believe, but you
cannot call it "open science", because there are things you can and
cannot do, thus the term "semi-open science"...

Here is the situation. Let's say there is software "A", which is open
for academic and research use without any additional arrangements, but
not for commercial use. Let's say someone produced software "B", which
they want to release under non-restrictive http://www.opensource.org/
license, but that software "B" is using software "A" (without any
modifications -- header files/linked libraries). To be more specific,
consider two situations:

1) software "A" is released under the open source MIT license with the
following explicit exceptions:

"Distribution of  modified  versions  of this code is permissible UNDER
THE CONDITION THAT  THIS CODE AND ANY MODIFICATIONS  MADE TO IT IN THE
SAME SOURCE FILES  *****.h AND ****.c  REMAIN UNDER  COPYRIGHT OF
THE  ORIGINAL AUTHOR,  BOTH  SOURCE AND OBJECT  CODE  ARE MADE  FREELY
AVAILABLE  WITHOUT   CHARGE,   AND  CLEAR   NOTICE  IS  GIVEN  OF  THE
MODIFICATIONS.

Distribution of this code for  any  commercial purpose  is permissible
ONLY BY DIRECT ARRANGEMENT WITH THE COPYRIGHT OWNER."

2) software "A" has some pieces released under LGPL, and some pieces
under QPL. Software "B" uses pieces from both groups.

I believe, that in both cases there is no violation of either of the
three licenses by distributing software "B" under open source license.
Although, under LGPL, the responsibility of following the license by
the act of linking software "B" with software "A" is the
responsibility of the end user. Am I correct?

Practical question: what is the proper way to submit software "B" to
Insight Journal? Software "A" is not included in the default
configuration of the submission check system, so I am not sure how
software "B", which depends on "A", could be tested.

Finally, is there an interest for the Insight Journal to receive a
paper about open software "B", which is using semi-open software "A"?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Andriy Fedorov