[OSM-legal-talk] Concerns about ODbL

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

jean-christophe.haessig at dianosis.org wrote:
> I found out recently about the license change issue, and I discover with
> fear that everything looks decided. I feel I'm being rushed.

You are probably not alone.

> Moreover, after having read the proposed license text and some comments on
> wiki pages, I am under the impression that most of the participants in the
> discussion are public domain advocates

No. If that were the case then OSM would have gone PD long ago and we 
would all be mapping happily instead of wasting our time trying to 
create freedom from the barrel of a license (kudos to JohnW for this 
phrase).

> I will not let OSM go PD. Granted, some texts claim it
> will not be the case (report from SOTM), but the current text of the ODbL
> raised my suspicion. Please correct if I misunderstood.

You misunderstood. The basic quality of OSM is that it is a database. If 
it were not a database it would be utterly useless (sit down for a 
minute and think of what you would do with OSM data that was not 
arranged in a database - you are unlikely to find anything).

The ODbL makes sure that whenever OSM is used or passed on as a 
database, then this database must also be under ODbL; it is a 
share-alike license.

The ODbL makes an exception from share-alike where the data is 
transformed into something that is not a database, e.g. a printout. This 
may be distributed under (almost) any license. But this freedom comes at 
a cost for the person using it: An improved database on which the 
printout is based, must be shared. In this respect, ODbL can be said to 
be even stricter than the current CC-BY-SA, see the following example:

Guy takes OSM data, adds some streets on his local machine, makes a nice 
  printed T-Shirt with a city map on it and sells the T-Shirt.

CC-BY-SA: Guy has to share the T-Shirt design (more specifically, he has 
to allow us to make copies of his T-Shirt). He can keep the improved 
database for himself.

ODbL: Guy does not have to share the T-Shirt design (he has to attribute 
OSM but his artistic input made the design "his"), but he does have to 
share the improved database that he has created.

 From our project perspective, the ODbL outcome in this situation is 
much better. What good is a T-Shirt design for us? We want data.

Some people come from a more ideological background and they say that 
they support OSM because they want a world with more "Freedom" in it, 
and thus it is important for them that the T-Shirt in this example is 
"Free" as well even though it does not help OpenStreetMap one bit to 
have the T-Shirt. They are of course entitled to hold this view, but 
OpenStreetMap is not about more Freedom in the world, OpenStreetMap is 
about a free world map, and this vision should guide our decision.

> * Waivers : thankfully I cannot legally waive my moral rights in my
> country, but I think it is unfair to require this form any person in the
> world. Of course I do not require that my name is printed on all
> OSM-generated maps, should they effectively contain data that I inserted in
> the DB. Being collectively acknowledged as "OSM contributor" is sufficient
> for me. But, I require that if someone wants to find out who are the
> precise people behind the data, this should be possible. 

I don't think anybody is saying we should drop usernames from the data 
base (we need them for our project to function). If you have read the 
"Waivers" section as meaning we want to do that, then some clarification 
is perhaps needed.

Bye
Frederik