[OSM-legal-talk] License

[jo at frot.org]

On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 06:14:29PM +0000, SteveC wrote:
> If you have anything further to add then please raise it on this list  
> before midnight on Friday 22nd. 

I've refrained from adding commentary as, not having been an 
active contributor for while i don't want to assume any role in a 
"community process". This is no vote, but a consultation for the
benefit of the OSMF Board. It has been an amazing discussion.
But I can't resist chucking 2 cents in if there is a midnight 
deadline on airing opinions.

The essay "Non-commercial isn't the problem, ShareAlike is"
helped convince me that rights-based licenses for data block 
reuse, and as more licenses flourish, the problem worsens:
http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/347 or just this image:
http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/blimg/cc-tw-license-compatibility-wizard.png

"How can a community so focused on freedom", he asks, "approve of 
any restrictions?" And so we get into deep philosophical questions,
does evil exist, does intent matter, what does "the" mean, etc. 
With respect, i don't expect to find the answers on osm-talk-legal.

I did find a lot in common with what the Archbishop of Canterbury
was saying recently about Sharia law, a discussion which he claimed 
"in fact opens up a very wide range of current issues, and requires 
some general thinking about the character of law... we need a 
fair amount of 'deconstruction' of crude oppositions... 
It is always easy to take refuge in some form of positivism." 

To choose one rights-based license is like choosing one rights-based 
legal framework, to the deliberate disclusion of potentially 
incompatible others. (And those who do not agree, have the right 
to pick up their data and go back where they came from).

Decisions get made on the basis of what appears to us to be the 
"nature of law", a set of accreted and perhaps unexamined assumptions 
about property, protection, enforcement and agreement, created 
over many centuries by and for a few "ruling" wealth-holders. 
So following a path of law leads us to more law. We Need law to 
protect ourselves against people wielding bigger law. Talking the 
language of law constrains what we think and mutates our concerns.

I have no anti-ODL beef, it probably presents a best set of solutions
to what are currently identified as legal problems. CC-BY-SA 
has always caused community problems with ShareAlike, now 
thrown into sharp relief by the maturing discussion over the last
few years and the number of new projects in a similar situation.
Progress may be slower with a PD-BY project, but this will
bypass this gripping over-concern with the letter of the law.

But the legal framework will change, the context of what other 
projects are doing will change, and these decisions will need to 
be made again. When that happens, this whole discussion and the 
disparately motivated PD arguments will still be there, unchanged. 

As someone pointed out several hundred emails ago, 95% of the 
OSM contributing community just does not care about license terms.
Of the 5% talking here fractionally few, perhaps none in the end,
will insist on revoking their contributions. Whether "relicensing"
goes in a PD+BY or ODL direction the technical issues in reverting
selective edits to an "approved" state will remain the same. 
The choice probably is not going to make that much difference. 
So pick the option that makes access and reuse easiest.

love, 


jo