[OSM-legal-talk] OBbL and forks

[Matt Amos]

On Tuesday, December 8, 2009, Anthony <osm at inbox.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 7:40 AM,  <mapping at sheerman-chase.org.uk <javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'mapping at sheerman-chase.org.uk');>> wrote:
>
>
> A quick question for the legal people: does ODbL allow the project to
> be forked?
>
> Technically, it does.  But remember that the OSMF is granted a special license in addition to the ODbL.  Any fork would be at a major disadvantage as it wouldn't have that special license.

Yes, because the osmf has a direct relationship with the contributors,
and any fork wouldn't. This is similar to the fsf, which asks its
contributors to assign copyright, giving it rights that any fork
purely under the GPL doesn't have.

Cheers,

Matt