[OSM-legal-talk] Licence termination

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

David Groom wrote:
> From this I infer that, unless a "Person"  is in breach of the Terms of the 
> licence, we give them the right to access the OSM database under the terms 
> of the licence as it was at the time they first started to use the database.

I think you are mixing up the terms "database" and "database". It's easy 
to do because they are so similar ,-)

1. A "database" is a collection of independent works, data or other 
materials arranged in a systematic or methodical way and individually 
accessible by electronic or other means.

2. A "database", on the other hand, is a machine which you can access 
using specific queries to retrieve data.

If we terminate the license, this does not mean that anyone who has 
downloaded our database (1st definition) must now play to other rules. 
The license that was valid when they downloaded the database will 
continue ad infinitum for that downloaded database.

Access to our database (2nd definition), however, can be governed by any 
rules we like, and we can change them as we see fit.

Bye
Frederik