[OSM-legal-talk] OBbL and forks

[Tobias Knerr]

Grant Slater wrote:
>> A quick question for the legal people: does ODbL allow the project to
>> be forked?
> 
> Yes it does. The LWG sought specific legal advise on this. We wouldn't
> be an open project if this was not allowed.

That fork would have less options than OSMF has, though. Most
importantly, it could only use the published ODbL data. It wouldn't have
the rights granted by the Contributor Terms, namely publishing data as
CC-by-sa or (with contributor support) any other open license.

Considering that the LWG seems to consider these options strategically
important, the fork would be at a disadvantage.

I'm not sure about attribution, either. Wouldn't the fork have to
attribute OSM as well, making attribution significantly less convenient?

Tobias Knerr