[OSM-legal-talk] Q&A with a lawyer

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

Jukka Rahkonen wrote:
> But what if OSMF is changing the license and somebody has
> managed to base some business on top of derived database licensed under the old
> ODbL license? 

Well he can always continue the data he already has and which he was 
given under the old license. The license for *that* data cannot be 
changed later. OSMF can only change the license for future releases.

> Companies can then deside if they
> would rather take the new license, or to make a fork.

The question of how to fork a hypothetical OpenStreetMap under ODbL is a 
very interesting one. Some people even say that something that cannot be 
forked does not deserve to be called "free".

I assume what would happen is this: You can fork OSM, continue to run it 
with your own contributors, but the license has to remain the ODbL as 
published by ODC. I am not clear about who would have the power to 
declare which licenses are deemed compatible to ODbL for your fork 
situation. Several possibilities:

(a) the list of compatible licenses would be "frozen" at the time of 
fork, i.e. whatever had been declared compatible by OSMF (or whoever was 
authorized by OSMF do make that declaration) remains valid for your 
fork, forever.

(b) OSMF's prerogative to change the list of compatible licenses affects 
your fork as well, so if your fork is so successful that OSMF's own 
project pales into insignificance, they'll make sure to change the list 
just to make your life difficult ;-)

(c) you are the new licensor and you get to decide, so if you say "BSD 
is compatible" then you have freed the data from share-alike.

(d) In a combination of (a) and (c), you might be allowed to reduce, but 
not extend, the list of compatible licenses at the time of fork; i.e. if 
OSMF has added some funny licenses you don't like, then you might be 
allowed to create a fork that is *not* compatible with them, but you 
cannot create a fork that is compatible with extra licenses the OSMF 
don't like.

It sounds to me as if (a) or perhaps (d) were the only sane ways to deal 
with this but I cannot point to letters of the license that would say as 
much. Forks are not supported ;-)

Bye
Frederik

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