[OSM-legal-talk] Future relicensing in the contributor terms and data imports

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

David Dean wrote:
> I'm a little worried about the impact of the Contributor Terms have on
> the ability of OpenStreetMap users to import data. The Contributor
> Terms don't explicitly mention importing at all, and seem to be
> focused on the user-as-mapper rather than the user-as-data-importer.

Not only the Contributor Terms - the whole project is. Data importing 
should always be the exception and not the rule.

> I'm concerned that even if a user-as-data-importer agrees to the CTs
> under the assumption that it is compatible with, for example, CC-BY
> data, then that data could become a noose around OSM neck if we want
> to perform a future relicensing (such as Mike's recent example about
> relicensing to release 10+ year old data under CC0 - this wouldn't be
> possible if any of the old data is CC-BY).

CC-BY compatibility is being worked on, see Mike Collinsons posting from 
yesterday. The reason why this is a problem is, alas, more the already 
existing imports and not the idea of keeping OSM as open as possible for 
future imports.

> Any significant future relicensing is going to find some data imports
> that, regardless of their importers agreement to the CTs, is not going
> to be compatible with the hypothetical future license.

I don't think that this is how things are meant to be. The person having 
done the import is not expected to agree to the CT if his source is not 
compatible with the CT:

> 1) Don't allow any imports from data that aren't completely compatible
> with the CTs (which would most likely just be explicit licensing under
> the CTs and PD)

That's the way forward, with the provision that CC-BY (and other 
wishy-washy "attribution" licensing like OS OpenData) compatibility is 
somehow ensured.

> 2) Allow imports under licenses compatible with the current database
> license (CC-BY-SA/ODbL at current) provided that the import changesets
> are tagged appropriately (including a license= tag) and waive the
> relicensing terms for the imports.

This is something that, as far as I understand, might be considered for 
some exceptional cases where imports under, say, CC-BY-SA have already 
been done but as you correctly say, these can become a liability later. 
It will almost certainly (IANABM, IANALWGM) not be considered for future 
imports.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"