[OSM-legal-talk] ODbL "virality" questions

[Matt Amos]

hi legals,

i've come across a couple of interesting questions / use-cases for the
ODbL and wider discussion. it basically reduces to whether we want the
ODbL to have viral (GPL-like) behaviour, or whether it should be less
viral (LGPL-like). we've discussed this at an LWG meeting and the
general feeling was that the LGPL-like behaviour would be more
desirable, as it would allow wider use of OSM by third parties.
however, it was felt that a wider discussion is necessary.

first case: a site wishes to use OSM data as a basis for
non-geographic data. the example used is a review side, like
beerintheevening.com or tripadvisor.com. they might want to use OSM as
the source of geographic data by linking its reviews to OSM node IDs
(or lat/lons taken from the OSM data). under a GPL-like interpretation
of the ODbL, this would "taint" the database, requiring its release.
considering that the records in the database may contain private
information (IP/email address of the reviewer) this may mean that the
site decides not to use OSM, because releasing the DB would violate
their own privacy policy.

second case: OSM data is downloaded to a handheld device (e.g:
iphone). this is likely (given the screen size of the device) to be an
insubstantial amount. the data is locally used for reference when
entering other information (e.g: abovesaid reviews). the reviews are
uploaded to a non-OSM site, linked to the OSM-derived node ID or
lat/lon. if many people do this, does that constitute repeated
extraction and therefore require release of the non-OSM DB under the
ODbL? i.e: can 3rd party sites use OSM IDs or lat/lons from OSM as
keys into their database?

the discussion at the LWG meeting centered around whether the database
"linking to" OSM data could be considered stand-alone. using the
similarity with the LGPL; whether the reviews database could be
"re-linked" against another source of geographic data while continuing
to work. this would imply that the list of (e.g: pubs or hotels) would
need to be released as an extract of OSM as a list of OSM IDs or
lat/lons, but that the reviews themselves and auxillary tables (such
as the users' information) wouldn't constitute a derivative work of
the OSM database.

what are your thoughts?

cheers,

matt