[OSM-legal-talk] New license status

[James Livingston]

On 26/09/2009, at 3:02 AM, Mike Collinson wrote:
> - A very much re-worked Contributor Terms is now virtually complete  
> and you can see a snapshot at http://docs.google.com/View?id=dd9g3qjp_1kqzg8dhr 
> .

Something I just thought of that would probably be worth talking about  
- how does the "active contributor" for voting, and other things, work  
if (unfortunately) the project forks?


 > the geo-database of the OpenStreetMap project (the “Project”)
...
 > or another free and open license; which other free and open license  
is chosen by a vote of the
 > OSMF membership [MJC3] and approved by a vote of active contributors.
...
 > An "active contributor" is defined as:
 >
 > a contributor (whether using a single or multiple accounts) that  
has edited the Project in any 3
 > calendar months from the last 6 months (i.e. there is a  
demonstrated interest over time,); and
 > has maintained a valid email address in their registration profile  
and responds within 3 weeks.

Two situations to think about:

1) Some time after a relicense to ODbL, there is a big argument and  
20% of the mappers go off to form FreeStreeMap, based on a fork of the  
database.
	(question) does the OSFM membership retain it's voting power over a  
re-license for all derivative databases?

A while later (> 3 months) OSM decides to relicense the db, perhaps to  
ODbL 2.0.
	(question) what exactly defines _the_ geo-database of the the Project?
	(question) and following that, if someone was contributing to OSM  
before the fork and FSM after it, do they get a vote on the re-license?


2) Some time after a re-license to ODbL, someone creates a derivative  
database called EvilStreetMap. They continue to release the data in  
accordance with the ODbL, but do not accept any outside contributors.
	(question) after waiting three months, who has voting rights over a  
re-license of EvilStreetMap?