[OSM-legal-talk] Upgrading to future ODbL version

Simon Ward simon at bleah.co.uk
Sat Jul 17 02:05:33 BST 2010


On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 01:36:09AM +0100, I wrote:
> Getting people to agree to a “we can change it even though you don’t
> agree because we have a 2/3 majority” is just a little bit sneaky in
> my opinion.

The project needs to understand the consequences of a license change,
this one or any future one, and accept that it may well not be able to
apply a different license to some existing data.  It should get over the
fear of “losing” data.  If a user doesn’t agree to a new license, then
tough, their data can’t be distributed per that license.  None of this
“ooh we’re scared so we’ll make people agree to allow relicensing in the
contributor terms”.

For a project about open data, we seem to be getting awfully hung up on
keeping a tight hold on the data rather than actually making it open.

Note: I’m a copyleft fan:  I think the the data being free (freedom, not
necessarily “free of charge”) and remains free is much more important
than any attribution.

Simon
-- 
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a
simple system that works.—John Gall
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