[OSM-legal-talk] Deconstructing the "loss of data" claim

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

> The issue was quite simple. We need to have a license that better
> protects the OSM data

Do we? What's the threat? How has it been assessed?

> and clarifies how the data can be used so that
> the project can effectively deliver what it set out to deliver.

It set out to deliver a free world map. The choice of license seemed
ok at the time, but it wasn't central to the project. Well I wasn't
around then but I am pretty damn sure that nobody said "oh well there
are all these PD world maps but we need something that is proper
copyleft".

> OSM never started out as a PD project so why would we think that it
> would be better to recommend it go PD now?

Perhaps: OSM started out as a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike
project and Creative Commons now suggest that factual data should be
licensed PD?

> I don't see why we would want to reinvent the
> present OSM project as PD.

Well the people who have chosen the inital license had not even
thought about database law and facts-are-free and the whole thing. We
are now, for the first time in the project, thinking about these
issues and trying to find a solution. It doesn't help to pick
individual bits of our current licensing and claim that they are
important pillars of the project and have been chosen after long
and thorough consideration. This is the first time we actually have a
community process going where we try to find the license that serves
us best. 

Or at least I thought we had.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00.09' E008°23.33'