Hi Folks
Sorry about my silence on this, when it gets back to the top of my priority
list (and it will), I will make some concrete suggestions, meanwhile, I would
note that the model metadata you allude to is part of a hierarchy of metadata
that surrounds the metadata embedded in files, but we all know that such
metadata and the data will get separated on the user desktop, even if it
useful in selecting the data ... and users pass data files on ...
I think the situation is exactly analogous to the issue with copyright and
software - software authors embed the copyright in the code (and/or a pointer
to the legal description of the license), and I think we should do the same
with data. I might go slightly further than using a URL and go for a DOI or
URN ... but we need to think this through ... because as has been pointed
out, the licensing status of data does tend to change with time ...
The bottom line is something needs to be done ... but from the CF point of
view, I think OPTIONALLY either embedding some text in a global attribute, or
using an external link are going to be easy to implement, and not onerous on
the data producers.
Cheers,
Bryan
On Tuesday 12 October 2004 20:42, Jonathan Gregory wrote:
> Dear Roy
>
> On Tue, Oct 12, 2004 at 08:15:28PM +0100, Roy Lowry wrote:
> > I don't agree. IPR and conditions of use are issues that are equally
> > relevant to both observational and model data. Confining the solution
> > to an initiative confined to modeldata would be a serious error.
>
> OK, I hadn't thought of that.
>
> However, another possible solution is that the standard being developed for
> model "discovery" metadata, and associated issues concerning how to
> describe the dataset, could be applicable to observational datasets.
> Katherine or Bryan might have a view on that.
>
> My point is that CF currently does not do much about this kind of issue.
> The global attributes we have provided are quite vague. To standardise this
> area would be duplicating other efforts that are going on, and that doesn't
> seem like a good idea to me.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Jonathan
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--
Bryan Lawrence, Head NCAS/British Atmospheric Data Centre
Web: badc.nerc.ac.uk Phone: +44 1235 445012
CCLRC: Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Didcot, OX11 0QX
Received on Wed Oct 13 2004 - 01:36:17 BST
