[OSM-legal-talk] Share-A-Like (non-) Verifiability because they are not publicly accessable

[Andy Allan]

On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 9:11 AM, Oliver (skobbler)
<osm.oliver.kuehn at gmx.de> wrote:
>
> Hello everybody,
>
> I am still concerned that some business users cannot make use of
> OpenStreetMap data because of the Share-Alike-rule as they don't want or
> cannot share proprietary data.

Umm, if you want it so that some people are exempt from sharing their
data, then having a share-alike license is the wrong license. Ergo, if
you want a share-alike license, people have to share their data. If
you want people to not share some data, you want a non-share-alike
license.

> I have the following interpretation in mind that could make the life of
> business users easier without undermining the generic Share-Alike rule:

Don't call them "business users", since that's just smearing lots of
other businesses. Call them "people trying to wriggle out of the
license".

> Would it be possible that all objects and attributes of these objects that
> are non-publicly accessible to declare as non-substantial due to the lack of
> verifiability?

No. That would be avoiding the whole point of the share-alike license.
If they have geographic data that we don't have, and they mix it with
OSM data, then the whole point is that we end up with access to their
geographic data. It's called share-alike! Not
"take-ours-and-keep-yours-private"!

Really, if people (businesses, charities, individuals or whoever) have
data they wish to keep private, they can still use OSM data
internally. If they want to "Publicly Convey this Database, any
Derivative Database, or the Database as part of a Collective
Database", then they can't avoid the licence.

Cheers,
Andy