07/30/2007: "SecPAL and Software Licenses"

The CARMEN project and in particular its consortium have identified a novel way of processing license information attached to software resources and that is by expressign the lisence is a format that can be electronically processed. We believe that SecPAL's formal model provides a grammar rich enough to capture lisence information. We have started work on the CreativeCommons Lisence with other lisences to follow.

By attaching these lisences expressed as SecPAL policies into resources we can predict whether the desired objective of a workflow enactment (for example identifying the function of a set of brain neurons and publicizing it) would be prohibited due to lisence constraints of the individual pieces of data or services used to accomblished the desired goal. the Following is the CC license example which I should stress it is under construction since i am still trying ot figure out how to express condition one which is an obligation for a future action.

Creative commons license

1. to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
2. to Remix — to adapt the work

Under the following conditions:

1. Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor(but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

2. For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. The best way to do this is with a link to this web page.

3. Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.

4. Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author's moral rights.

SecPAL Definition

We assume x is the owner of a resource r
We assume that y is any user

FACTS
x possesses r
x can copy r
x can distribute r

CLAIMS
y can act as x if y possesses "credential c1"
**credential c1 refers to the written permission given to y by x (condition 3)

ASSERTION
x can say y can act as x