Hi all,
On the subject of Steve's reply to Talin, I am assuming Steve knows the
situation better than I do and he is right coz he works there and I don't.
But I think I should point out that there is no definition for "personal
use" in the license (http://www.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/fsl/index.html). It only
defines commercial use.
That brings me to the next question, is this legal under the license:
Suppose I am from a rival software company and I download FSL, run it on my
test data and compare the output to that of my own company. I do not in any
way incorporate FSL into my new product, nor do I disclose the result of
the testing to any of my client. (The latter to me is unethical)
My interpretation of the new license is this is not legal because of item
(2)" use of the Software or any derivative of it for research with the
final aim of developing software products for sale or license to a third
party...".
As I understand it, the spirit of the old license is to (i) promote wide
use of the software and to (ii)encourage innovation in the field of medical
imaging. Hence, the scenerio I described above does not violate the spirit
of the license (ii), eventhough advantages is obviously mine alone). I
recognize the need to protect Oxford's reputation/property and that Oxford
should be able to exploit commercial advantage on FSL. However, the new
license seems to prevent even the use of software for "comparison and
evaluation" purpose which in my opinion, stifle innovation.
The new clauses are alarming if they are actively enforced on "grey areas"
which does not violate the spirit of encouraging innovation. Suppose I
publish an academic paper describing what I did and compared with FSL, if I
did not explicitly sought permission for doing so, and the fact that I
enter into a commercial agreement with a third party for the use of my
software, allows Oxford to sue me for infringement using my agreement with
the third party (financial return) and the paper (use of FSL) as evident of
violation of clause (2) above.
Can someone clarify whether the license do cover previous versions of FSL?
Many thanks and best regards,
Cinly
P.S., may I suggest you modify the third line of the last paragraph to read
"defined as commercial use, and includes **but not limited to ** (1)
integration of all or part" (parts in ** ** mine)
On Oct 8 2002, Stephen Smith wrote:
> Hi - no problem.
> Thanks, Steve.
>
> On Tue, 8 Oct 2002, Talin Tasciyan wrote:
>
> > I am aware of the licensing changes and passed the information
> > onto the rest of the group. If I download the software for personal use
> > in my view, would there be any problems with that in terms of
> > licensing?
> >
> > Thanks
> > Talin
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Stephen Smith [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> > Sent: Monday, October 07, 2002 12:22 AM
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: [FSL] FSL 3
> >
> >
> > The latest release of the FMRIB Software Library (3.0, October 2002)
> > is now available for downloading from http://www.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/fsl
> >
> > There are many additions since the last release (June 2001), the main
> > ones being:
> >
> > * FEAT v5:
> >
> > - Bayesian multi-subject FMRI analysis: General GLM for higher-level
> > analysis (e.g. analysis across sessions or across subjects; paired
> > t-tests, three-level groupings etc): FLAME (FMRIB's Local Analysis
> > of Mixed Effects). FLAME uses very sophisticated methods for
> > modelling and estimating the random-effects component of the
> > measured inter-session mixed-effects variance, using MCMC to get an
> > accurate estimation of the true random-effects variance and degrees
> > of freedom at each voxel.
> >
> > * MELODIC v2:
> >
> > - Probabilistic ICA (PICA) for FMRI. By adding a Gaussian noise model
> > to the ICA model, and automatically estimating the dimensionality
> > (the number of non-Gaussian components), it is now possible to
> > create meaningful Z-statistic maps for each spatial component,
> > allowing inference ("thresholding").
> > - Inference on the Z-statistic images is carried out with a
> > Gaussian/Gamma mixture model (fitted using EM), fitting central
> > noise and activation classes; thus alternative hypothesis testing
> > is used.
> >
> > * Interoperation with FreeSurfer and AFNI
> >
> > For a more complete list see http://www.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/fsl
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanks for your interest, enjoy!
> > the FMRIB Analysis Group.
> >
>
> Stephen M. Smith
> Head of Image Analysis, FMRIB
>
> Oxford University Centre for Functional MRI of the Brain
> John Radcliffe Hospital, Headington, Oxford OX3 9DU, UK
> +44 (0) 1865 222726 (fax 222717)
>
> [log in to unmask] http://www.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/~steve
>
-- I am currently on my backup mail access mode. However, this should not
stop you from sending emails to me. It just means it takes longer to reply
to your mail.
