[OSM-legal-talk] Starting Repository For Public Domain OSM Data

[Joseph Gentle]

Sorry, I've been busy writing up research proposals and whatnot. I'm
starting a phd next year (woohoo!).

I don't like the standard creative commons PD license. Their CC-zero
license is ok, but not finished. Here's the wikipedia license from
earlier in the thread:

"I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it into the
public domain. This applies worldwide.

In case this is not legally possible:
I grant anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any
conditions, unless such conditions are required by law."

Here's the ODC Public Domain Dedication:

http://www.opendatacommons.org/odc-public-domain-dedication-and-licence/

It is about 5 pages long.

I am happy with either. We probably should just pick one. Unlike
normal OSM, there is nothing viral about either license. It doesn't
matter if some data has been dedicated using one PD license and some
using another. If we find problems, we can probably just change
licenses for future data while keeping all the old stuff. (The TIGER
data and whatnot will probably be under a different license from
everything else anyway. So will OSM data by users marked with PD.
There's nothing wrong with that).

I really like small simple licenses. They are easy for the rest of us
to understand. However, I can certainly see the advantages to a big
license like the ODC PD license. It is much more explicit about things
like patents, databases, facts, etc. It explicitly mentions that code
written to render the maps is not necessarily covered under the same
license. I don't really foresee problems using a simple license, but a
big license which is explicit about everything is probably better.

However, I'm a bit nervous about the ODC PD license abandoning the
publisher's moral rights. That means I can legally come along and say
that I drew all the maps myself; or I could draw offensive pictures
out of your roads and say that was you. I don't mind if people don't
attribute me - but thats different from pretending you were the
author. Jordan: Why is this in there? Can we take it out?

My vote is for ODC-PD if the moral rights waiver is removed and the
wikipedia pd license otherwise.

-J


On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 12:57 PM, Sunburned Surveyor
<sunburned.surveyor at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for doing that initial work Kari. I've been home with the flu,
> so I've been a little out of the loop.
>
> I think we could make decisions based on an informal vote of the OSM
> contributors interested in PD. As things get more serious we can use a
> more formal governance structure, if one is needed.
>
> I'll see if I can make more time to comment tomorrow, if I'm feeling
> better. I'd like to know what Jospeh thinks as well.
>
> Thanks again.
>
> Landon
>
> On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 12:08 PM, Kari Pihkala <kari.pihkala at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I created a wiki page for the public domain map, have a look at
>> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Public_Domain_Map . There is also a
>> link from the http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Open_Data_License to
>> the new page.
>>
>> I listed all public domain licenses - we need to decide which one to use.
>> How to make decisions? Voting?
>>
>> Also, there is a todo list. I'm not sure if it lists all the required
>> actions, please correct it if it is wrong.
>>
>> - Kari
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 12:14 PM, Peter Miller <peter.miller at itoworld.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> >What does OSM Foundation think about the PD repository? Would it make
>>> > sense
>>> >to host both licences under the name OpenStreetMap or would it be
>>> >confusing? How much OSMF wants to be part of the PD version? After all
>>> >I think most of the decisions will be the same for both (e.g.
>>> >deciding about tags, road types, changes in software...)
>>>
>>> To be clear, the OSMF is there to support the project and it is the OSM
>>> contributors (and the OSMF members) who should guide the direction that
>>> the
>>> project goes in. If the community says 'pd' then this is the way I am sure
>>> the foundation would support it going. In the absence of a strong vote for
>>> pd their attitude is to sort out the share-alike licence.
>>>
>>> Btw, I don't really see how the project would work if one contributor in
>>> an
>>> area was doing PD and the other was not. There would need to be dual work
>>> to
>>> produce a good pd version of the area which would be weird and hard to
>>> explain to say the least.
>>>
>>> Anyway, I do think it would be useful to set up a pd-talk list to capture
>>> all this and to ensure that it doesn't overwhelm the legal-talk list which
>>> I
>>> suggest should be more focused on current legal concerns. If there is not
>>> a
>>> pd-project wiki page then I suggest you set one of those up and link to it
>>> from the ODBL page.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Peter
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> legal-talk mailing list
>>> legal-talk at openstreetmap.org
>>> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> legal-talk at openstreetmap.org
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>>
>>
>
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