[OSM-legal-talk] Progressing OSM to a new data Licence regime

[rob at robmyers.org]

Quoting Richard Fairhurst <richard at systemeD.net>:

> OSMF disagrees significantly with this assessment of a contractual
> approach. Commercial geodata (TeleAtlas, Navteq etc.) is protected
> this way.

Has this been tested in court though? Or has anything equivalent to  
this been tested in court?

> We also believe that the experience of free software/open
> source licences is that enforcement is largely achieved by public
> pressure: the GPL is enforced more through bad publicity for alleged
> violators (or "bad guys") than by actual legal action.

Yes, but the GPL works because lawyers read it and having seen that  
it's at least coherent enough to lead to a lawsuit tell their clients  
to settle.

> OSMF believes that CC's position is essentially formed from their work
> with scientific data, and that their recommended approach of "norms"
> is laudable but less likely to be practical in the geodata market.

Yes I would agree with that. In particular if the contractual approach  
is valid, non-copyleft Free/Open Geodata can be captured by  
proprietary projects.

Keep up the amazingly thorough good work. :-)

- Rob.