[OSM-talk] What is the point of having a restrictive license...

Martin Koppenhoefer dieterdreist at gmail.com
Tue Oct 2 15:42:22 BST 2012


...if noone enforces it? I am refering here to 3 recent cases, all
from this year and involving global players:

1. Microsoft mixing OSM data and aerial imagery to obscure military
installations in Germany, January 2012, nothing substancially happened
so far
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Bing/2012_Germany_Military_Blurring

2. Apple using OSM in iPhoto for iOS since April 2012 ((for photo
journals and slideshow, for places they continued to use Google)
meanwhile there is "half" credit, but the license is not mentioned, so
people don't know that they are allowed to copy the maps, and e.g. in
their current advertizing video
http://www.apple.com/ilife/iphoto/  they show a google logo 0:26-0:30
on the google map but there is no mention of OSM when the OSM based
map is shown: 1:52-1:59)
They also do have terms attached to iOS which seem to raise
compatibility issues with Openstreetmaps former cc-by-sa license:
http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/iphotoios.pdf  (don't be afraid
of the 242 pages of terms, it's in different languages ;-) )

2H. Digital Materials. Except as may be provided herein, you may not
use, extract or distribute,
commercially or otherwise, on a standalone basis, any photographs,
images, graphics, artwork,
audio, video or similar assets (“Digital Materials”) contained within,
or provided as a part of, the Apple
Software, or otherwise use the Digital Materials outside the context
of its intended use as part of the
Apple Software.

No mention at all of Openstreetmap or map in this document (iPHOTO
SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT)


3. Apple using OSM in their iOS6 maps (again missing license
information, i.e. officially it is not even clear whether their maps
are produced from ODbL or cc-by-sa data, and again you don't know
which part is based on OSM, so you can't be relaxed when sharing their
maps under cc-by-sa conditions).


IMHO they used this peripherical use in their iPhoto for iOS app as a
test balloon and when they saw that our license enforcement is a
toothless snow tiger, they could be relaxed when violating the license
again in their new major iPhone feature (maps). Or do you have any
other explanation how comes they failed a second time within a few
months in fulfilling OSM's license requirements? Is it too difficult
to find the license requirements on our website? Don't they have a
legal team to cross check these issues? Would they have failed in
attributing data from a commercial provider? Does anybody think Apple
is simply negligent on such a crucial point in their key feature of
the new iOS?

What has the OSMF done to make these corporate users adhere to our
license, a license which all of the current contributors just recently
have voted to be the best license for the project?

1. In the Microsoft case the community was asked on 2nd February to be
patient (from IRC): "Microsoft has received requests from the armed
forces to blur areas in Germany (StGB 109g is one of the corresponding
directives which has been used as reference). We, Bing, have to comply
with this requests erroneously used among other sources also some OSM
information. We're working to correct the polygons and rework the
blurring areas however it will take some time due to the amount of
processing involved. We understand this is objectionable to some
members of the OSM community but based on our very good relationship
we hope and thank you for your understanding and patience"

2. The board had decided in an extraordinary meeting in April to deal
directly with this case ("due to the importance and timeliness")
rather than the LWG (
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=16E0l4NdeMkUqgEe_mPC78tJ9yPQHUuRZYNtapBEM2K4
), but since then this issue didn't reappear in the board minutes.
iPhoto for iOS still does not mention the license of the contained OSM
data and their SLA still contradicts cc-by-sa requirements. OK, they
do attribute to OSM, but they don't satisfy the requirements of the
cc-by-sa license (name and link the license and share-alike
provisions).

3. Since maps on iOS6 came out 2 weeks ago with similar problems
regarding the license (obfuscation of the license terms of OSM data,
it is not even clear where they use OSM data (so how could you share
alike?), they do give OSM less attribution visibility than TomTom,
etc.) there is not yet a statement from OSMF, so we can still hope.

Sorry for the long mail and thank you for reading until here.

I also believe it is marvellous that a growing number of users
including global players see the benefit of using OSM maps, and we
should embrace this use, but not for the cost of completely ignoring
license issues. Either we make all users adhere to the terms, or we
change the terms to make them fit with the current uses, but we
shouldn't really allow important players a less strict interpretation
of our license terms than we allow to all other smaller users. And
legally I think that the board doesn't have a mandate to reduce the
license requirements for select users.

cheers,
Martin



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