One of the topics for decision on the pathway to open-source of the software is declaration of copy-rights.

Formally the copy-right of current products lies with the EpiData Association in combination with the authors of documents etc, which in principle is defined as the sum of persons involved (users, developers, initiators, contributors), but in practice a core group of more influential persons. See the credit pages of the website.

There are an abundance of various software open-source/freeware/,..... formulations of copyrights and license principles. Basically as I see it there are three considerations a. By releasing the software one does not take responsibility for errors, timeloss or other losses by using the software (protection against claims from users). b. Someone else should not take the documentation and or software and use for their own purpose without proper referring to those who created the various parts. c. How can we protect the development for future use without restrictions imposed by patents, licensing or similar. And how can we make sure to keep it from being "taken over" under changed conditions.

I am not asking for a lengthy discussion of this on this list, but should anyone have viewpoints on the topic let us know.

Currently I am favouring the use of this one: "Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported Licence" which can be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ as well in English as many other languages. The "Unported" means not translated.

Kind regards

Jens Lauritsen EpiData Association