[OSM-legal-talk] reciprocal data agreements

Richard Weait richard at weait.com
Wed Oct 7 15:26:37 BST 2009


On Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 1:50 AM, Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:
> Richard,
>
> Richard Weait wrote:
>> Imagine a data provider using perhaps cc-by, or a BSD style permissive
>> license contributes their data to OSM.
>> Imagine then that they would like to monitor changes in OSM to data
>> that originated from their source.
>> Imagine then that they would like to incorporate those changes, with
>> or without further vetting, back into their dataset under their
>> license.
>
> I agree that this would be very desirable; however it would allow our
> sacred data to leave the protecting cage of ODbL and live on under a
> CC-BY or, God forbid, a BSD license which would be unpalatable to
> many contributors. [changed cc-by-sa to cc-by above]

Indeed.  We use a viral license, in part, because we want folks to
contribute their data to OSM.  We all benefit from the additional data
donated to OSM.  The donor has done exactly as we asked, and donated
to OSM under the OSM license for the greater good.

What more can a data contributor do?  They contribute their best data;
we all do.  Perhaps we improve it further.  Perhaps we update it
faster.  Perhaps they do.  Do we want to encourage the free exchange
of data-improvements between the original donor and OSM?

Do we eat our own dog food, or do we eat our young?  ;-)




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