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

[Peter Miller]

On 23 Mar 2009, at 12:47, John Wilbanks wrote:

>
>> From: Richard Fairhurst <richard at systemed.net>
>> Though I have a lot of time for CC in general, and agree with their  
>> general
>> stance that PD is the ideal way to go, I don't really find that a  
>> very
>> useful response.
>>
>> I count 20 occurrences of the word "science", "scientists" or  
>> similar; eight
>> of "education" and "educator"; but not a single one of "map" or  
>> "geo".
>
> If this were the "Open Street Map License" and not the "Open Database
> License" it's unlikely we would have such a strong opinion. It's one
> thing for a community of practice to embed its norms in its own  
> license.
> It's quite another to create such a license and promote its use for  
> all
> databases.

>
>
> Though I disagree fundamentally with share-alike on data for a lot of
> reasons, I disagree even more with the promotion of the idea of
> licensing into data generally. This isn't simply about OSM writing its
> own license - it's about the promotion of the idea that complex
> licensing in the name of "freedom" is a good idea, and that's going to
> have effects that reach far beyond your community, indeed, into places
> where the public domain has to date been the vital steward of data  
> sharing.
>
> Software and culture work pretty well for the promotion of single
> licenses. But a database of mapping and geo is very different from a
> database of biology, chemistry, or physics. And it's even more  
> different
> than a database of cultural works. The promotion of a geomapping set  
> of
> norms as an "open database license" is part of the reason I have  
> such an
> allergic reaction to this license. I'd far prefer this be the OSM
> license, but so far, it's being promoted as a generic solution and as
> such it's going to be considered by scientists, educators, loop
> creators, and on and on and on. So comments *must* address concerns  
> that
> go beyond those of the immediate community.


However checking ODbL against OSM has provided a useful reality check  
for ODbL and has shown up some weaknesses even with quite simple Use  
Cases. Also, it has become clear that ODbL is not going to define some  
terms, such as 'substantial' which will leave it for others to guess  
at or fight about in the courts and many potential users may decide  
not to take the risk as a result. It may not have been appropriate or  
possibly for the license authors to define the terms but it does show  
up a practical problem with a license that depends on ill-defined  
categories.

As for OSM doing its own custom license, I think that is a bad idea  
because it is important that the data can be combined and reused with  
other datasets . Personally I am still trying to make ODbL work as  
well we we can because it will open up other questions and delays if  
OSM rejects it however I do see where John is coming from on all this.

For now we have asked a lot of questions and are now awaiting  
responses from OSMF and Jordan.



Regards,



Peter Miller



>

>
> jtw
>
> -- 
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> John Wilbanks
>
> VP for Science, Creative Commons
> http://creativecommons.org
> http://sciencecommons.org
> http://neurocommons.org
>
> "We make sharing easy, legal, and scalable."
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