[OSM-legal-talk] Concerns about ODbL

[Rob Myers]

On Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 1:32 PM, OJ W <ojwlists at googlemail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 1:12 PM, Richard Fairhurst <richard at systemed.net> wrote:
>>
>> jean-christophe.haessig wrote:
>>> 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 and that they may use this
>>> license change to promote their views.
>>
>> Just to dispel any conspiracy theories: that certainly isn't true.
>
> However, the ability to create an uncopiable map image from OSM data
> (one of the main aims of some PD advocates) does seem to have appeared
> in the ODbL license?

It was always there, I thought?

>From a share-alike point of view the ODbL has important practical
advantages over BY-SA for geodata. Unlike the GNU GPL, BY-SA  doesn't
require the provision of source, and it may well be that geodata
source is more important for freedom of maps in general than copyleft
is for specific maps. BY-SA allows the creation of maps that cannot
usefully be used and modified because the original geodata that they
have been rendered from cannot be recovered from them. So in my
copyleft-proponent opinion it can be argued that ODbL protects access
to geodata more strongly *in practice* than BY-SA.

But I'm really feeling uncomfortable about the contract law component
of the licence...

- Rob.