[OSM-legal-talk] ODbL for the DB; what about the contents?

[Simon Ward]

On Thu, Oct 09, 2008 at 02:34:48AM +0200, Frederik Ramm wrote:
>                                            How will the potential 
> user know whether the data you entered is just fact, or the result of a 
> complex approximation that took you a day's work?

The short answer is the user doesn’t; they treat the data as if it was
to be shared and generally be nice people.  They _could_ spend lots of
money involving their lawyers to decide whether some small chunks of
data that don’t amount to a sizable proportion of the database are
usable and the licence does not apply, or they could comply with the
licence.

This isn’t different to how CC-by-sa is being taken to apply to the
database _and_ contents (where people find it usable).  CC-by-sa doesn’t
make the distinctions we need for the data especially with respect to
derived works.  The factual share-alike licence should still make this
clear, and is more in the spirit with the original licensing.

Your argument would also suggest that there is no need for the factual
licence.  As far as I understand, it simply makes the data free where it
has the power to do so.  Where it doesn’t, it banks on the data being
free to copy in that jurisdiction anyway.  A share-alike licence would
only be similar:  Make the data free and and ensure that further
redistribution is free where it has the power to do so.

This comes down to PD vs permissive vs share-alike, and I’ve seen this
be discussed to bits in the past.

Simon
-- 
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a
simple system that works.—John Gall
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 197 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/attachments/20081009/92b1c326/attachment.pgp>