[Imports] Nepal VDC's boundaries import

[Blake Girardot]

On 5/17/2015 7:55 PM, Christoph Hormann wrote:

> I think you are missing the point here - it has been common practice in
> the past to obtain individual permission from right owners for
> importing CC-BY data into OSM.  If you want to change this established
> procedure for your import you should give a valid reason.  The only
> reason i could imagine is that the right owner does not want to give
> that permission - which obviously is a bad one.
>

I think it is cool and beneficial to contact people who provide data and 
explain what we do and that we would like explicit permission to put 
their data in OSM, but there is a difference between common 
practice/nice to do and required.

In this instance contacting the original copyright holders is difficult 
due to business changes and acquisitions, and I have personally written 
to the public contact addresses of the now parent company, but don't 
expect much response just due to the size of the company involved (I do 
hope to be surprised though, ESRI is a good company, I think it will 
just be hard to get the right person's attention there). Even if we do 
receive explicit permission in this instance, I still think the issue of 
nice to have v. required as it relates to CC-BY 3.0 should be settled 
more clearly.

There is also the issue of timeliness. If the license this data was 
released under is compatible with the ODbL, as the creators of CC-BY 
seem to think it is, it causes harm in this instance to wade through a 
process of getting unneeded explicit permission.

Don't misunderstand me, I am not suggesting special treatment due to 
need, I am suggesting CC-BY is compatible in any circumstances and yes, 
we should continue to contact people who's data we are going to import, 
but if that is not required, we could in some instances just go with the 
letter and spirit of the license as a matter of practicality.

But I do not think that any additional permissions are required as I 
think CC-BY 3.0 is compatible with ODbL (which seems to be supported by 
the CC people themselves) and that OSM meets all the attribution 
requirements and will follow up on the legal-talk as was suggested to 
get a better understanding of why others feel OSM does not meet these 
requirements.

PS: Paul, here is the comment from the CC senior counsel saying there is 
no reason CC-BY is not compatible with ODbL in her opinion:
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2013-January/007413.html

Regards,
Blake