A Guide for Publishing, Using, and Licensing Research Software in Germany

Research software has become a central asset in academic research. In Germany, the German Research Foundation (DFG, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) recently updated the Guidelines for Safeguarding Good Research Practice. Research software is now valued similarly to classic publications and data with implications for research software sustainability and legal aspects. In this document, we present four decision trees and corresponding legal documentation tables to aid researchers. The decision trees should ease to identify i) the software policy of your institution, ii) restrictions imposed by contributors and the environment, iii) licensing collisions if 3rd party software is included, and iv) problems in licensing (existing) research software.