[OSM-legal-talk] ODbL: Who is the licensor / whose "database" is it?

Iván Sánchez Ortega ivan at sanchezortega.es
Thu Dec 11 19:17:22 GMT 2008


El Jueves, 11 de Diciembre de 2008, Frederik Ramm escribió:
> > Heck, I'd even hold that a data array of any kind held in RAM qualifies
> > as a database. Not just because it's an array, but because somebody
> > decided what goes into that array and in which way.
>
> But the database directive does not extend protection to each and every
> database; there has to be "substantial investment" in obtaining,
> verifying or presenting the contents.

OK, while I have to agree with you on this one, I'd like to make a couple of 
things clear here.

A *database* is a bunch of stuff in my computer's RAM. *Any* stuff at all.

Database *protection* is granted only to DBs that have had a subtantial 
investment on them.

> Now while I can just about see the substantial investment in getting out
> on a rainy day and collecting 50 road geometries with your GPS, there
> can be absolutely no doubt that entering the name of the pub around the
> corner will never come under "substantial investment"...

Now, I can have two points of view here (let's say, 1a and 1b):

- I did invest a substantial amount of effort and time getting this data into 
$EDITOR. It is already a DB, and I'll slap a ODbL on it before it goes off my 
computer.

- I did not invest much time while drawing these two pub nodes in $EDITOR, but 
I'll only upload them if you slap a ODbL to them the moment they are  
integrated in the main DB. (Read that last line as "the moment my 
unprotectable DB gets merged with the protectable DB" and/or "the main 
protectable DB is derived thanks to my unprotectable DB")


And then comes 1c, AKA "I don't care about f***ing licenses":
- I have this data (DB) in $EDITOR, and I don't really care if I did a 
substantial investment on it or not. All I know is that the main 
(protectable) DB will get modified (derived) with my DB (either protectable 
or unprotectable, it doesn't matter).


<joke>
Anyway, learning Potlach should be considered a "substantial investment"
</joke>



Cheers,
-- 
----------------------------------
Iván Sánchez Ortega <ivan at sanchezortega.es>

La vida es una enfermedad mortal de transmisión sexual.
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