[OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] License to kill

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

Russ Nelson wrote:
> Well, Ulf has explicitly said that he doesn't trust the process to keep 
> the data free, and wants to be able to sue people whom he believes are 
> infringing the copyright.
> 
> But as far as contributing without a clear agreement, just look at 
> Wikimapia.

Contributing without a *clear* agreement is certainly bad for all 
involved. You rightfully quite CDDB as a bad example of this.

Contributing with a clear agreement - be that PD, ODbL, CC-BY-SA or 
RichardStallmanOwnsYourCat - does not have that problem because people 
know what they get and what they don't get.

80n suggested that without a clear promise that everything would remain 
free forever, people would not contribute, or would contribute 
significantly less. I said that I am not of this opinion, and quoted 
Google Map Maker as an example - they know perfectly well that they have 
no rights over their content and still they contribute. I am sure that 
OpenStreetMap under an ODbL license where people know that others are 
allowed to make proprietary Produced Works will be just as interesting a 
project and grow just as fast as it does today.

Bye
Frederik