[OSM-legal-talk] The big license debate

[Robert (Jamie) Munro]

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A lot of the recent debate has just been going down the wrong alleys,
discussing things like what we can and can't do with the current
license, or with the GPL, or with Inkscape etc.

That is all irrelevant. What we are discussing is what is best for OSM.

Let's start with the opening sentence on the OSM web site. It's what
most people coming to OSM see.

"OpenStreetMap is a project aimed squarely at creating and providing
free geographic data such as street maps to anyone who wants them. The
project was started because most maps you think of as free actually have
legal or technical restrictions on their use, holding back people from
using them in creative, productive or unexpected ways."

I think it is generally agreed that with the current license, that
statement is false. CC-BY-SA is a legal restriction, especially the SA.
So the question is: How do with fix this? We either change the aims of
the project, or we change the license.

Unless you are going to claim that the CC-BY-SA license is not a legal
restriction, please don't discuss license specifics - i.e. what I am or
am not allowed to do with the data under CC-BY-SA. Please keep
discussion what our aims should be, and what kind of usage we do want to
restrict. When we have decided that, we can look at what licenses may
allow that.

To start the debate: I believe that the aims are valid. I believe that
we need a license that lets people download the data, make maps from it,
and be able to do what they please with those maps. I believe people
should have a moral responsibility, but not necessarily a legal one, to
contribute back to the original source data information about any errors
or omissions they find out about, and can reasonably resolve.

I think there are 2 parts to the aims:
1. Make a map.
2. Distribute the map.

In the short term (while the map is substantially far from complete) it
may be more beneficial for the project to place more requirements on
certain users of the data to contribute back to the project, but as the
project matures, the needs for these requirements probably lessen, and
public domain may be the only option that meets our aims once most of
the worlds roads are mapped.

Robert (Jamie) Munro

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