[OSM-legal-talk] Is CC-BY-SA is compatible with ODbL - a philosophical point

[David Groom]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "80n" <80n80n at gmail.com>
To: "Licensing and other legal discussions." <legal-talk at openstreetmap.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2010 6:26 PM
Subject: Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Is CC-BY-SA is compatible with ODbL - a 
philosophical point


> On Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 5:44 PM, David Groom 
> <reviews at pacific-rim.net>wrote:
>
>> Why are we changing the licence?  Well [1] states among other things that 
>> "
>> [CC-BY-SA]  is therefore very difficult to interpret",  and we have 
>> indeed
>> seen this situation occur many times when people have asked what can and
>> can't be done with OSM data, and no definitive answer could be found.
>>
>> If it was unclear if something was allowed under CC-BY-SA then users of 
>> our
>> data were asked to take a cautious approach.  And that seems very 
>> reasonable
>> stance to take, even though it resulted in a lower than hoped for use of 
>> OSM
>> data. So it was decided that since even the OSM community could not
>> categorically say how  CC-BY-SA applied to OSM data a licence change was
>> needed.
>>
>> Move forward a bit and we start to implement the new licence.  Since we
>> could not reach consensus on how CC-By-SA applied to "our" data, it seems
>> reasonable to assume that we can not assume how CC-BY-SA data applies to
>> other people data, and therefor to be safe I presume we won't simply be
>> blindly importing  CC-BY-SA data into OSM.  I presume we will be 
>> approaching
>> providers of data that has a CC-BY-SA licence and asking if we can use 
>> that
>> data in OSM.  So our permission to use the data will stem not from a
>> CC-BY-SA licence, but from the explicit permission given by the copyright
>> holder.
>>
>> Or am I missing something?
>>
>> David, CC-BY-SA licensed content is incompatible with ODbL+CT.
>
> CC-BY-SA derived content would not be allowed in an ODbL version of OSM.
>

80n
Sorry I should have made it clear that I realise that.  As I titled the 
post, it was more a philosophical point that extended beyond the confines of 
the CT's & ODbL.

I suppose where it ovelaps with the discussion on CT & ODbl is where I asked 
if  "we will be approaching providers of data that has a CC-BY-SA licence 
and asking if we can use that data in OSM.  So our permission to use the 
data will stem not from a CC-BY-SA licence, but from the explicit permission 
given by the copyright holder".  As such it then wouldn't  matter if 
CC-BY-SA were incompatible eith the CT & ODbL as we would not be relying on 
the CC-BY-SA licence, but rather on the explicit permisison.

David

> 80n
>
>
>
>
>> Furthermore if we don't approach CC-BY-SA providers and ask if we can use
>> their data, then we are using it by virtue of the fact it is CC-BY-SA, 
>> and
>> surely the CC-BY-SA permissions "flow though into" the OSM data. In which
>> case nothing has been gained from the licence change process as the same
>> permissions which were there before (and were difficult to interpret) 
>> still
>> exist.
>>
>> Apologies if this has been discussed before, but I cant see anything 
>> about
>> it on the implementation plan [2]
>>
>> David
>>
>>
>> [1]
>> http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/License/We_Are_Changing_The_License#Why_are_we_changing_the_license.3F
>>
>> [2]
>> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Database_License/Implementation_Plan
>>