[OSM-legal-talk] Licensing Working Group report, 2009/01/22

[Rob Myers]

Johann H. Addicks wrote:

> I consider evolving licenses as evil blank cheques.

They are a necessary evil. And a necessary blankness.

> Even if there is preamble saying "all future versions will be in the same  
> faith like this" a lot of contributors will feel that they are forced to  
> trust somebody they do not know so far as beginners. This might be repelling.

It hasn't repelled enough people to stop GNU or Wikipedia succeeding.

> Think about organisations that you ask for data and you show them a OSM- 
> license that says "license will change in the future without notice"

Think about organizations that show you no licence.

> Then even a PD-release would be easier, because then everybody knows that  
> there is nothing more coming you can ask for.

This solves the problem by causing it immediately. ;-)

- Rob.

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 260 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/attachments/20090129/54e43b07/attachment.pgp>