[OSM-legal-talk] License update

[Richard Fairhurst]

Charles Basenga Kiyanda wrote:

> I'm also wondering. How can one legally agree to release a  
> contribution under a license which is unfinished? Or am I  
> misunderstanding the situation and the ODL is in fact done?

Technically speaking the user would be licensing their contributions  
under the ODC Factual Info Licence  
(http://www.opencontentlawyer.com/open-data/open-data-commons-factual-info-licence/), to which no changes are  
proposed.

The FIL is in essence a PD-style licence; but (if the community  
approves a change to ODBL) OSM would only republish these  
contributions under the terms of ODBL, thereby providing the  
share-alike/attribution-style "protections".

As I alluded in my reply to Dom's e-mail earlier, users could also  
_additionally_ permit OSM to republish their contributions as public  
domain. This would essentially be formalising the wiki "PD-user"  
initiative.

cheers
Richard