[OSM-legal-talk] Concerns about ODbL

[Rob Myers]

On Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 12:40 PM,  <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.

The licence discussion has been going on for a couple of *years* now.
It needs resolving as soon as possible.

But people have raised the issue of needing time for review, and
possibly further review.

> I don't understand why an adoption plan has been put up while the very
> terms of the license are yet unsettled.

If the licence isn't approved, adoption cannot go ahead. But if it is
approved, it needs to happen as soon as possible so the project can
move on. So this is good planning.

> How can the authors be so certain
> that no significant changes will need to be made after the comment phase?
> Changes would imply another comment phase on the new version.

They cannot. If that is the case then another review phase should be
added. And the licence can be rejected if it is not acceptable even
after that.

> The time granted to read all the discussions, documents, wiki pages *and*
> understand them correctly is way too short. OSM is not a full-time
> occupation for many people.

You can ask questions on this list to help with understanding of the
licence (ours as well as yours).

> 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. While i respect these people, I do not share
> their opinions and 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.

Richard points out that the conversation on the list is currently
dominated by freetards^D^Dcopyleft advocates. And the PD advocates may
well do a better job of improving the licence by criticizing it, as
they won't look at the licence with rose tinted spectacles on.

> * 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. To me, the current
> license text simply states that any person contributing data from a country
> where moral rights waivers are possible, may have their name completely
> deleted from the DB.

As Frederik says, OSM exists to provide a free street map.

Advertising contributors' names is a bug of BY-SA, not a feature.

> * Produced Works : as I understand, it will be possible to distribute a
> produced image map under any license, including all rights reserved.
> Therefore, if an editor produces good-looking maps with an unpublished
> process, the published maps will not even be usable in a SA manner, even if
> the editor used community resources at the root of its process. This sounds
> unacceptable to me.

It's a pragmatic step to ensure that what users of free maps actually
need (free maps generated using quality geodata) isn't denied by
ensuring that the subject of copyleft in the wild is something else
(low-resolution maps rendered from that data).

- Rob.