A couple quick thoughts:

   - DDC isn't a structure in the same way that those other things are. DDC
   defines a conceptual universe (portions of which are regularly redefined)
   as well as ways of navigating it. In this sense, the navigation has more in
   common with menuing and the content has more in common with something like
   an index or thesaurus
   - DDC is owned by a giant library cooperative, so it makes more sense
   for the libraries to simply make it publicly available than to look for
   legal/technical loopholes to do the same. However, I've never been able to
   tell that stuff libraries own (particularly tools) is any more more open
   than stuff they don't.
   - DDC doesn't exist as a format per se, certainly not MARC which is
   simply a container developed to ship info around on tape more than a half
   century ago.

kyle

On Wed, Apr 14, 2021 at 12:07 AM Jakob Voß <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> A colleauge of mine just pointed me to a detail of the court decision in
> the case Google vs. Oracle. The Suppreme Court of the United States
> ruled that reimplementation of Java API is no copyright violation but
> allowed at least under fair use:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_Inc.
>
> The opinion of the Court contains a remarkable section on page 6:
>
> https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/18-956_d18f.pdf
>
> "The second, less obvious, function is to reflect the way in
> which Java’s creators have divided the potential world of
> different tasks into an actual world, i.e., precisely which set
> of potentially millions of different tasks we want to have
> our Java-based computer systems perform and how we
> want those tasks arranged and grouped. In this sense, the
> declaring code performs an organizational function. It determines the
> structure of the task library that Java’s creators have decided to
> build. To understand this organizational system, think of the Dewey
> Decimal System that categorizes books into an accessible system or a
> travel guide that arranges a city’s attractions into different categories"
>
> Following this argument the Dewey Decimal System can be used as free as
> the Java API. I think that we (library developers) already assumed for
> specification of data formats, ontologies and data models but it also
> applies to other kinds of knowledge organization systems (classification
> schemes, thesauri, gazetteers...) including DDC. By the way if you know
> systems not covered in BARTOC.org yet, please let the editors know so we
> will add them!
>
> I doubt that we can share the raw MARC data of DDC with all of its
> details, but the class hierarchy, notations and headings (without
> limitation of depth!) can be used freely as far as I understand the
> court. Or am I missing something?
>
> Cheers
> Jakob
>
> --
> Jakob Voß <[log in to unmask]>
> Verbundzentrale des GBV (VZG) / Common Library Network
> Platz der Goettinger Sieben 1, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
> +49 (0)551 39-31031, http://www.gbv.de/
>