Making you data usable by others#
Warning
We are not lawyers, so any questions about the legal aspects of licensing code and data should be asked of the legal department at your institution. Often Uiversity Libraries have good resources on licenses. Many institutions recommend a particular license.
Legally, a product needs to be licensed in order for someone else to use your code and any data that is not raw data or facts. The license tells users how they can use data and how you would like to be acknowledged.
Licenses for data#
Generally, if you want to share data, you should select a license that allows users to copy, store, redistribute, and share data, metadata, and any other content. For data, By marking content as publicly available, users grant the Arctic Data Center repository, UCSB, and any other users the right to copy the content and redistribute it to the public without restriction under the terms of thetwo licenses are recommended: CC-0 Public Domain Dedication or the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Licenses for Software#
When you create a GitHub repo you can select a license from a long list of licenses commonly used for software. Your institution might have a preferred license or even a specific license it would like you to use. Avoid trying to write your own license. This is a job for lawyers. GitHub has a useful guide.