[OSM-legal-talk] ODBL enforcement: contract law and remedies

[Ed Avis]

Tom Hughes <tom at ...> writes:

>>When I look around I see a thriving OSM project, with no evidence that the
>>current CC-BY-SA licence has held back people from contributing or led to
>>leechers distributing their own OSM-derived data under unfree terms.

>You've enumerated two possible failures modes for the current license 
>but ignored one important one - whether people are being put off reusing 
>our data because of uncertainty over the license.
>
>We know for a fact that a number of people (especially people that have 
>asked their lawyers for an opinion) have indeed decided not to use our 
>data for this reason.

That is certainly a good reason to switch to a simpler and legally
unambiguous licence.  Have these same lawyers reviewed the ODBL and given
it the thumbs up?

(It would also be a good reason to dual-license the OSM content both under
Creative Commons and under a somehow more friendly licence.  As a rationale
for dropping CC altogether it makes less sense.)

-- 
Ed Avis <eda at waniasset.com>