[OSM-legal-talk] PD declaration non binding?

Anthony osm at inbox.org
Mon Jul 26 17:30:37 BST 2010


On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 4:56 AM, Rob Myers <rob at robmyers.org> wrote:
> On 07/25/2010 05:24 PM, Anthony wrote:
>>
>> So why hasn't OSMF moved OSM to CC-BY-SA 3.0? The upgrade clause
>> makes that nearly as simple as "sed 's/2.0/3.0/g' index.html",
>> right?
>
> Nearly.
>
> But at least one major contribution to OSM is from a jurisdiction where the
> 2.0 licences included the EU DB Right.
>
> A more general point is that OSM(F) not asserting the DB right on OSM
> doesn't mean no-one else will assert it on a derivative, which breaks the
> idea of the data being freely usable for everyone. The problem isn't that
> OSM(F) might be evil and assert DB right. The problem is that *anyone*
> might.

You said yourself that the database right doesn't have to be asserted.
 No one can assert the database right on a derivative of the OSM
database, because they'd need the permission of the maker of the
database to do so.  (They'd also need to be the maker of the database,
which in itself seems unlikely.  Not just *anyone* can assert DB
right.  Only the maker of the database can.)  No license at all means
all rights reserved.




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