[OSM-legal-talk] License License License

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

Peter Miller wrote:
> Mike uploaded the draft licence to the foundation website yesterday
> http://foundation.openstreetmap.org/the-openstreetmap-license/

Good. I will translate this into German to generate some interest on 
talk-de. I'm not exactly looking forward to having to act as the first 
port of call for anyone who doesn't like something but I can always say 
it is THEIR fault.

I think there are some points arising from the last days of discussion 
that are not (yet) covered by the license (most importantly the lack of 
distinction between public and restricted distribution and also the 
question of what happens if you take a substantial extract but make an 
insubstantial change e.g. osm2pgsql) but I will first focus on the 
smaller details that spring to (my) mind on reading this draft. (Bear in 
mind I'm not a native speaker so might interpret some things differently.)

1.0 Capitalised words

This defines "Extraction" and "Re-Utilisation" as terms that only apply 
to a "all or a Substantial part of the data", rendering all later 
occurrences of the term "Extraction of all or a Substantial part..." 
useless and making "Extraction of Re-Utilisation of insubstantial parts" 
(as discussed e.g. in the paragraphs on "Substantial") impossible. - The 
word "Substantial" must be dropped from the definition of "Extraction" 
and "Re-Utilisation" to make sense.

2.2 b Database Rights

"Database rights can also apply when the Data is removed from the 
Database and is selected..." - "removing data from a database" to me 
means deletion and this makes the sentence funny. Should this perhaps 
read "Data is extracted..."?

2.3 Rights not covered

This says that the license does not cover patents or trademarks. Which 
is good because otherwise it would be much longer. However, to avoid 
misunderstandings, I think that the specific OSM license we will later 
use should have some extra text saying that by uploading to OSM you say 
that you are not aware of any patent applying to what you're uploading. 
Otherwise someone could maliciously upload a complex construct that 
somehow falls under a patent and "poison" our database with it - or am I 
too cautious here?

3.1 Grant of rights

"... for the duration of any applicable Copyright and Database rights". 
In many other places in the license, care is taken to always talk of 
"Copyright and neighouring rights, and Database right". Why the omission 
of the "neighbouring" here - purpose? Plus, I'd like an annotation here 
that says: "The license only extends for the duration of the applicable 
  rights because after that the data base can be used without a license 
anyway" - which is obvious, legally, but might not be obvious to anyone 
reading this ("huh, do I have to stop using the data after Copyright has 
expired?").

4.2 Notices

"You must, if you publicly Use ... this Database, any Derivative 
Database, or the Database as part of a Collective Database..." - this 
monster shows up elsewhere as well (e.g. top of p5, or in 4.3). I fail 
to understand why this is necessary. If I create a Derivative Database 
or include this database in a Collective Database, then the license is 
automatically inherited by the Derivative Database or the "part of" the 
Collective Database. So it should suffice to say "if you publicly Use 
... this Database", because for the Derived Database there will be a new 
"instance" of the license for which "this" is the Derived Database. Or 
is this applying too much programming logic to legal things?

4.2 b "Keep intact any copyright or Database right notices..." - this is 
the attribution chain, correct? Could it perhaps then read "4.2 b 
Attribution: Keep intact..." to make this clearer to people who know 
existing licenses?

4.3 and 4.5 b, "mash-ups". "integrated expericences". What is the 
difference between 4.3 and 4.5 b? Is 4.5 b just a re-iteration of 4.3? 
Both sections talk of producing a "Substantial" extract (and explictily 
omit the "all data or a Substantial extract" wording found elsewhere), 
and both talk of combining this extract with information from one or 
more sources to form an "integrated experience".

What if I take the planet file, print it onto A4 sheets of paper and 
plaster it somewhere as an art installation? I have used ALL data (not 
only a "Substantial part", unless the term "Substantial part" is meant 
to apply to all data as well in which case all occurrences of "all Data 
or a Substantial part" in the document should be changed!), and I have 
not combined it with anything from another source - but I have still 
created an integrated experience, haven't I?

Why the wording "... (via a search or query)" - who cares *how* I have 
extracted data? If I randomly extract 1000 records, do these sections 
then not apply?

The whole "integrated experience" thing *needs* to be clarified with 
examples if the license is to be understood by anyone. Since the example 
with a database containing images has been used elsewhere in the 
document, I propose:

"Example: For a database containing images, a typical 'integrated 
experience' might be a web page that lets you search for individual 
images, download, process, or rate them, or a video clip where one 
selected image is morphed into another."

I don't even know if this example is good. I would be better at 
providing OSM examples ;-)

4.3 a This section is called "Example notice", but then proceeds to set 
up further requirements. 4.3 only talks of a "notice reasonably 
calculacted", but 4.3 a suddenly makes demands about hyperlinks and 
URLs. It must be clarified which of these is just an example how to 
satisfy the requirement, and which of these is actually part of the 
requirement.

4.4 a ii/iii allow licensing under a later version of this license or a 
compatible license. Which body has the right to say whether something is 
a later version of the ODbL or compatible with it? I believe that we do 
need such a clause so we can update the license in the future but I can 
already hear the hawks.

Why the clause "if you license under (iii) you must comply with the 
terms of that license" - does that somehow mean that if I chose (i) or 
(ii) I don't have to comply?

4.5 c should be updated to include GPL3-alike wording (giving stuff to 
contractors etc.)

4.7 Technological measures... - contains references to 4.6b and 4.6a, 
which should be 4.7b and 4.7a respectively.


I can already see that we need a larg-ish translation document that 
connects the ODbL and the OSM world, giving OSM specific examples for 
everything.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"