[Savannah-register-public] [task #14528] Submission of relax

[Edward d'Auvergne]

Follow-up Comment #36, task #14528 (project administration):

>> ...the REMARK section numbering and format can be important... in many
cases intricate, automated, software-specific formatting is used that simple
hand edits could easily break
>
>It's up to you to make sure that the license notices don't break it for your
package; since it's only about distribution within relax, I think you don't
need to care about any other software.

Actually, relax is always used as part of a toolchain of different softwares. 
Interoperability with other software is very important.  The relax UI includes
interoperability functions for 13 different softwares, and support for reading
input or writing output text files for over 15 other unique softwares.  Here
breaking the PDB format will, for example, hinder our support for Xplor-NIH
<https://nmr.cit.nih.gov/xplor-nih/>.  That is a very undesirable outcome. 
Hence why placing the copyright or public domain notice in an external README
file, rather than breaking the strict PDB format, is really how these PDB
files should be dealt with.


>> we absolutely cannot identify the original copyright holder.
>
>
>Then I think you should write down the reasons why this file is effectively
public domain. We know there are cultures that neglect copyright, but the GNU
Project holds the position that using copyrightable material is forbidden
unless explicitly allowed.
>
>However, please feel free to discuss this with the FSF and RMS; they are in
the position to make decisions about such corner cases.


Sorry for not making it clearer.  The Protein Data Bank contents are public
domain.  All authors agree to waiver their copyright upon submission of their
data.  From the RCSB PDB Policies & References
<https://www.rcsb.org/pdb/static.do?p=general_information/about_pdb/policies_references.html>:

----
*Usage Policies*

Data files contained in the PDB archive (ftp://ftp.wwpdb.org) are free of all
copyright restrictions and made fully and freely available for both
non-commercial and commercial use. Users of the data should attribute the
original authors of that structural data. By using the materials available in
the PDB archive, the user agrees to abide by the conditions described in the
PDB Advisory Notice.
----

Or from within in the Full Privacy Statement
<https://www.rcsb.org/pages/privacy-policy>:

----
RCSB PDB operates an open-access portal for public domain information about
the 3D shapes of proteins, nucleic acids, and complex assemblies that helps
researchers, educators, and students understand fundamental biology,
biomedicine, and bioenergy.
----

Or from the Worldwide PDB website <http://www.wwpdb.org/>:

----
*Mission*

Ensure open access to public domain experimentally determined structural
biology data.
----

This is clearly in the public domain.  The PDB files themselves always
identify all authors of the corresponding peer-reviewed scientific
publication.  This publication is a strict requirement for deposited data, and
almost all scientific journals conversely require the data to be deposited as
public domain to the PDB when publishing a paper about a 3D structure.  Hence
we do not believe that we need to extract from this already present author
list the pre-waiver copyright holders (which is not possible anyway) and
credit them.

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