[OSM-legal-talk] moving up the stack

[David Groom]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <rob at robmyers.org>
To: <legal-talk at openstreetmap.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2007 3:42 PM
Subject: Re: [OSM-legal-talk] moving up the stack


> Quoting Richard Fairhurst <richard at systemeD.net>:
>
>> What, today, I've been trying to get a handle on is what people's
>> reasons are for saying one form of commercial use is practical and
>> another isn't;
>
> Because one form doesn't affect the freedom of others, and another does.
>
> "Commercial use" isn't the issue. A charity, a multimillionaire
> debutante, or a
> student doing the same thing would be equally harmful.
>
>> The  thing I'm required to release is of no use to OSM apart from,
>> maybe,  the featured images page; yet there's no obligation on me to
>> release  the expanded data-set, which _would_ be useful to OSM.
>
> OSM's stated purpose is to make geodata "such as street maps" available to
> people, so the map would be useful to OSM because it would help OSM to 
> fulfil
> its purpose.
>
> If the maps incorporate new data, that may be incorporated back into
> OSM's more
> data-y data by tracing, Google Earth style.
>
> If they don't then it is still important that people are able to use them
> freely.
>
>> I'd like to know why it is I keep hitting my head
>> against a brick wall. What would my proposed use take away from OSM?
>
> If someone ends up with a map derived from OSM work that they have reduced
> freedom to use then freedom has been lost, and this is harmful. OSM as a
> database on a server hasn't suffered, but OSM's aims have.
>
I'm sorry but I just don't understand the above argument.  What "freedom" 
has been lost?  The OSM data remains the same, nothing has been lost.  I'll 
admit that nothing has been added. but that is not the same as saying 
something has been lost.

If you want to follow that argument, then under the current interpretation 
of the licence there will also be a loss since Richard is saying he wont 
produce the map. the result in each case is the same, under the current 
interpretation the map doesn't get produced,under a different license the 
map gets produced but not shared, the result for OSM and the wider community 
is the same, its just that you have prevented Richard from using the data, 
and I don't see what benefit this is.


> What would your proposed use add to OSM? And what would it produce that
> someone
> couldn't simply reproduce from the same data and charge less for than your
> version?
>
>> I just don't get how the cause of free data is helped by
>> share-alikeing the art bit.
>
> The art is a rendering of the data, cannot be made without it, and
> contains its
> information. It basically is data, and the front page of the OSM site says 
> as
> much. The aim of OSM is for everyone to be able to use the data (including
> visual renderings of the data). If an instance of the data (including 
> artistic
> renderings of it) ends up as a map that you are not free to use in some 
> ways,
> the cause of free geodata "such as street maps" is harmed.
>

For the record I cant see anywhere on the front page which says a map is 
data. In any case I'm not sure that in a debate on how to move the licensing 
issue forward it is particularly relevant to see what is written on the 
wiki, and use it as hard evidence.

The issue is to get a license which works. Then if necessary amend the wiki 
:)

David

> - Rob.
>