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

[Peter Miller]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: legal-talk-bounces at openstreetmap.org [mailto:legal-talk-
> bounces at openstreetmap.org] On Behalf Of MJ Ray
> Sent: 16 October 2008 09:53
> To: legal-talk at openstreetmap.org
> Subject: [Spam] Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Licence brief/Use Case - final call
> forcomments
> 
> "Peter Miller" <peter.miller at itoworld.com> wrote:
> [changeset supply with products and machine-readability]
> > I have updated the wording. Is it any better?
> 
> I fished
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Open_Data_License#A_brief_for_the_
> proposed_licence
> out of a browser history.  I think it deals with the product case. I
> still think it permits the undesirable "human-readable change listing
> with a machine-readable original" situation.
>

That was not the intention. Please update the wording as you see fit.

 
> > > 2) What is "similar"?  Is this a backdoor?
> >
> > The concept of similar comes from the Debian licence and also appears in
> the
> > ODBL licence.
> 
> What's "The Debian licence"?  I'm a debian developer who compiled the
> listing at http://www.debian.org/legal/licenses/ and I've not heard of
> it...  we try pretty hard to avoid writing licences.
> 

Sorry, the 'Debian Free Software Guidelines' (DFSG)
http://www.debian.org/social_contract

> > It is important that the licence can be updated without asking
> > everyone for permission again, but it is unclear at present who would do
> > that and how. The phrase 'or similar' is something that the legal boys
> will
> > have to think about.
> 
> Yeah, I know this problem - the debian project only just relicensed
> the main logo, which took years with only one copyright holder, and
> still the debian web pages need a licence update.
> 
> I'd be inclined to delegate licence updates to OSMF in a similar way
> to many people use "version 2 or later" on the GPL to delegate updates
> to the FSF, although fewer people do that since GPLv3.
>

Sure, that would work if the OSMF 'owns' the licence and as long as the
foundation can't be 'bought' and agree to allow unfettered commercial use by
some rich company that paying them off! Just to say it isn't easy to say who
should have the right to do the licence, but it is probably prudent to
restrict the amount of change that can be introduced to the licence without
a new mandate, that is what the 'or similar' is meant to mean, but possibly
the Debian DFSG words should be included. 
 
> > > 5) Whose "fair-use" rules?  The USA's?  The pretty-minor UK ones?
> >
> > I have noted your point at the appropriate location.
> 
> "in which country is this licence being interpreted?" should not be
> used to add a Choice of Venue (which can require significant travel
> costs to defend a minor action) to the licence.
> 

I am inclined to leave this one to the lawyers. Any suggestions welcome
though. Feel free to tinker with the wiki page directly and then post to say
what you have done.


Peter

> Hope that helps,
> --
> MJ Ray (slef)
> Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small
> worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/
> (Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237
> 
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