[OSM-legal-talk] New phrase in section 2

David Groom reviews at pacific-rim.net
Fri Dec 3 15:19:50 GMT 2010


> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Francis Davey" <fjmd1a at gmail.com>
> To: "Licensing and other legal discussions." 
> <legal-talk at openstreetmap.org>
> Sent: Friday, December 03, 2010 2:43 PM
> Subject: Re: [OSM-legal-talk] New phrase in section 2
>
[snipped for brevity]
>
>
> Yes. I am fairly clear that some people don't want to make OSM
> effectively PD - they do want to restrict its usage that is why ODbL
> is being used (otherwise why bother with it)?
>

Francis
( I realise that you are not necessarily advocating a move to PD)

The fact is that the OSM board have no mandate to move OSM to PD, 
irrespective of what "some people may want".

When the vote by OSM members was taken last year the New Licence Proposal 
[1] stated:

1) From the second paragraph "The License Working Group, with the approval 
of the OpenStreetMap Foundation board of directors, is asking the full 
membership of the Foundation whether or not to upgrade .... to the Open 
Database License 1.0, an attribution, share-alike license specifically 
designed for databases."

2) from the first section of the section headed "What is the licence 
recommendation" - "ODbL is CC BY-SA without the problems"

3) From the section headed "is this the same as CC-By-SA" -  "It is similar 
in intent and basic form".

4) From the actual wording of the vote found later in the same document 
"OpenStreetMap is moving from its existing license to the Open Database 
License, which continues the attribution and share-alike licensing features 
but is specifically designed for open databases."

So, at the time the OSMF was given a mandate to proceed with the licence 
change, it was on the basis that the license chosen would have CC-BY-SA 
qualities.

Furthermore when the template of the letter to big data donors was written 
it stated "OpenStreetMap is upgrading its data license from CC-By-SA v2 to 
ODbL v1, Open Database License, v1, a license specifically written for open 
databases and data. The underlying principles remain the same: the data can 
be used freely by anyone as long as there is attribution and that published 
enhancements are also shared without fee".

If the OSMF board wish to move OSM to PD then

a) they should say so
b) they should ask OSMF members for a mandate to do so
c) They should explain to data donors this is what is happening.

What should not happen is a process of trying to move to PD seriptiously as 
some have suggested.

David

[1] http://www.osmfoundation.org/images/3/3c/License_Proposal.pdf
[2] 
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License/Bulk_Import_Support_Page#Template_Letter_.28_Formal_approach_to_big_data_donors.29 







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