[OSM-legal-talk] Licence brief/Use Case - final call forcomments

[jim at cloudmade.com]

The key seems to be individually accessible in a systemic way.

To me this implies attributes (columns) and tuples (rows of one or  
more related attributes) that can be accessed.

A bit map would not be a database, but XML, csv, xls, shape files  
would.  The interesting distinction may be vector data that is not  
organized in a direct searchable fashion - so, would svg (for example)  
be a database?  Hmmmm...

Jim Brown -CTO CloudMade

(Sent from my iPhone)

On 15 Oct 2008, at 17:28, Jochen Topf <jochen at remote.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 02:47:39PM +0100, Richard Fairhurst wrote:
>> Frederik Ramm wrote:
>>
>>> What leads you to assume that your .ai files are databases?
>>>
>>> They're computer readable and they have individual objects that can
>>> be accessed... but what file hasn't?
>>
>> From ODBL: "Database – A collection of Data arranged in a systema 
>> tic
>> or methodical way and individually accessible by electronic or other
>> means offered under the terms of this Licence."
>>
>> But I wouldn't say the .ai file is a database, it _contains_ a  
>> database.
>>
>>> At what stage of processing would they, in your eyes, stop being
>>> databases?
>>
>> A sufficiently accurate, computer-produced map of the real world
>> always contains a database IMO.
>
> The Directive 96/9/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of
> 11 March 1996 on the legal protection of databases defines a  
> database as
> "a collection of independent works, data or other materials arranged  
> in
> a systematic or methodical way and individually accessible by  
> electronic
> or other means". (From Wikipedia)
>
> This is rather broad and would certainly cover the OSM XML format and
> any other structured format. Probably not bitmaps of rendered maps,  
> but
> about everything else.
>
> Jochen
> -- 
> Jochen Topf  jochen at remote.org  http://www.remote.org/jochen/  +49-721-388298
>
>
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