[OSM-legal-talk] Software using open street map data and Licensing model / restrictions

[Frank O'Dwyer]

Frederik Ramm wrote:
>Anything you produce from OSM data must be CC-BY-SA licensed (e.g. if
>you compile OSM data into some special compressed map format for your
>application then these special compressed files must by CC-BY-SA). If
>you mix OSM data with someting else into an end product then that end
>product must also be CC-BY-SA. If your application displays OSM data
>loaded from file 1 and proprietary data loaded from file 2, then you can
>keep the licenses separate.

I have a similar question to the OP. I want to mix in OSM POI data in my
(free) iphone app database, which also collects POI-like data from users
and (if I import the OSM data), users can add ratings / descriptions /
arbitrary tags based on the original OSM POI (so clearly 'derived').

My intention is for the data collected (entries, ratings, tags) to be
open and CC-BY-SA in the same spirit as OSM and to make DB dumps etc
available, minus identifying info for users. The question is does it
matter which version of CC-BY-SA I pick, and indeed if every entry in my
DB has to be under the same CC-BY-SA license, in order to be compatible
with OSM. The reason for asking is that osm currently uses an older CC
license and I'd prefer to use the latest version unless it causes problems.

Reading the CC license, it says derived works must be under the 'same or
similar' license, so the spirit certainly doesn't seem to be to tie to
the exact same version. I'm not trying to restrict the use of the data
in any commercial way, just want to use the latest CC license if I can.
At the same time, I want any data collected by the app to be usable by
OSM, so that it can be shared back in case it turns out to be useful
(e.g. I collect new fixes for existing POIs, and I may potentially get
new POIs that OSM hasn't got already). So I don't want to pick a license
version that prevents that.

The app is already out there, but initially I have been vague about the
exact CC-BY-SA license version used. In any case, I don't use any OSM
data yet, but would like to start importing it soon. For the collective
DB I am using the open database license as it looks well thought out to
me, and I also understand that is where OSM is headed - this also seems
to potentially allow for using slightly different licenses per
individual content.

A description of the app and the mention of the data being open is here
http://appshopper.com/travel/word-on-the-street
or here on itunes
http://itunes.com/apps/wordonthestreet

Regards,
Frank