[OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] ODbL vs CC-by-SA pros and cons

[jamesmikedupont at googlemail.com]

On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 12:41 AM, Eric Jarvies <eric at csl.com.mx> wrote:
>>> As follows: if X uses your data under a contract with you that
>>> requires use in a particular way (eg to mimic something like the GPL)
>>> and X, in breach of that agreement, passes data to Y then barring
>>> certain special circumstances (such as X and Y colluding) it will be
>>> virtually impossible to prevent Y from using the data in any way they
>>> please.
>>
>> unless the work is copyrighted or copylefted as well. What right does
>> Y have to the data to begin with? under copyright law, he has no
>> rights.
>
> Y has everything to do with the data, in the context explained above. The point is; it is already difficult(and expensive, time consuming) to defend rights on said data, it will become even moreso.

Perfect. So the new license is being shown as possibly non effective
against such an attack.

Even if someone could then use data and reverse engineer it, if I see
someone who copies my work 1-1 there might be some protection. If they
find a way to extract the points and use them commercially and
legally, then maybe they will also fall victim to the same tactics.

It is not said that we cannot use the same weapons against them, if
they end up "stealing" our data legally, then we can just legally
steal their changes back, no?

What if the data is locked down by all these NDS and contracts, but
someone posts it to wikileaks? Then it could be downloaded and facts
extracted by out.

This will need more thought. Copyleft is at least very simple.

-------------------------------------

My conclusion is, if it aint broke, dont fix it.

As stated before, let the proponents of the new license setup a beta
test server and let people import changesets as they wish. OSMF has
enough servers. I have the feeling that the big players pushing for
the new license also have some cash to spend on this as well.

Then we can see what is really going to happen without destabilizing
the great thing we have build up to now.  The community can then
decide what and when they want to contribute. Users should have to
choice to post changes to one or many servers. These types of features
are sorely needed anyway in osm, we need to support multiple
distributed servers, we need more robustness.

All big companies use beta trials, why not osm?

mike