[OSM-legal-talk] ODbL comments from Creative Commons

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

Simon Ward wrote:
> Greater certainty in one area does not necessarily mean there is greater
> certainty in others.  If we remove all obligation to reciprocate,
> increasing the certainty that someone may redistribute the database in
> their own product (it may be proprietary) without recrimination, then we
> lose the certainty that derivatives would be free for all as is the
> intent with share‐alike.

What I wanted to say was that, to a certain degree, *any* certainty is 
better than a random assortment of "may", "might", "the project 
consensus seems to be that...", "i am not a lawyer but...", "depending 
on your jurisdiction", and "depending on the judge's interpreation".

If the whole thing is share-alike then I would at least like to have the 
rules laid out in a way that makes it clear what I have to do to be on 
the "right side".

I am not entirely happy about your "when in doubt, try to err on the 
sharing side". I would very much like to avoid a situation in which an 
uncertainty in the interpretation of the license makes user A refrain 
from doing something (because he thinks it "might" be against the 
license) whereas user B brazenly does the same thing and gains some kind 
of advantage by doing it, and then A starts complaining to us.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"