[OSM-legal-talk] Contributor Terms

[Matt Amos]

On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 2:33 PM, Ed Avis<eda at waniasset.com> wrote:
> Matt Amos <zerebubuth at ...> writes:
>
>>http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License/Contributor_Terms
>
> Should say: You agree to only add contents for which you are the copyright
> holder, *or which are in the public domain*, *or which already have permission
> from the rights holder to distribute under Licence X*, or where you have explicit
> permission from the rights holder to submit the content.

if it's in the public domain then you already have permission from the
copyright holder. also, having permission from the rights holder to
distribute under License X is the same thing as having permission from
the rights holder to submit the content, no?

maybe it's just the word "explicit" that we need to remove?

> Sections 2 and 3 seem a bit too much of a blank cheque to the OSM Foundation.
> If we truly believe in share-alike, then is it not enough for contributors to
> agree to license their work under Licence X, and then the OSMF will be able to
> redistribute it?

that's not how it works with databases. each item in the database is
contributed separately and has rights separate from those in the
database. the database is licensed ODbL, but the contents are licensed
as noted in the contributor terms.

there is no blank cheque. read section 3 - "OSMF agrees to use or
sub-license your contents **only** under the terms of one of the
following licenses: ODbL 1.0, CC-BY-SA 2.0, or another free and open
license chosen by a **vote** of the OSMF membership **and** approved
by a **vote** of active contributors."

this is even stronger than the proposed changes to the articles of
association. OSMF will be bound by more than 100,000 contracts with
contributors which prevent it from licensing data under anything other
than ODbL 1.0 or CC-BY-SA 2.0 **unless** there is a vote not only of
the OSMF membership (which you can join) but also of the global active
community (which you are presumably part of). seriously, i don't see
how we could possibly make this any less of a blank cheque without
preventing future license upgrades altogether.

> If you want to be able to do future relicensing exercises then why not simply ask
> for copyright assignment?  It is more honest that way I think.

because we've heard it time and time again that people don't want to
do copyright assignment.

cheers,

matt