Florian Atzenhofer-Baumgartner, BEd MA

Code, models, data: licensing issues in research software. Experiences from the DHinfra project

Open software licences are a cornerstone of open science, but choosing the right licence is no trivial matter. This presentation offers a brief, practical introduction to licensing issues in research software: What types of licences are there, and how do they differ? What can be licensed – not only code, but also AI models, training data or documentation? And what problems arise when licences are incompatible or projects change their licence terms? In addition to some basics, the presentation takes a look at the larger context: How are licensing decisions related to funding conditions, institutional policies and sustainability issues? Who can or should be involved in licensing decisions? These questions will be illustrated with experiences from the DHinfra project, which promotes open-source software for the digital humanities in Austria and beyond, and has first-hand knowledge of selection processes, evaluation criteria and licensing issues.

Florian Atzenhofer-Baumgartner is a member of staff at the Institute for Digital Humanities at the University of Graz, where he is involved in digital humanities and research infrastructure projects. His work focuses on recommender systems for the humanities and machine learning methods. He is also involved in software development and project management in the university environment, particularly for digital research infrastructures.