[OSM-legal-talk] [DRAFT] Contributor Terms 1.2

[Ed Avis]

Francis Davey <fjmd1a at ...> writes:

>>No, the data contributed to OSM must be licensed to OSMF under the
>>contributor terms:
>>
>>"You hereby grant to OSMF and any party that receives Your Contents a
>>worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable licence

>> The rider in section three restricts what OSMF can do with the contents but
>> it doesn't give any contributor the right to agree to the above clause
>> unless they have full ownership of that content.
> 
>Quite. There's probably a missing "to the extent that you are able" or
>similar before the "You hereby grant", or some similar dependant
>wording. It is only a draft so far, my understanding is that its
>clearly intended that (i) to the extent that the contributor has
>copyright etc in the contributed data, they license OSMF to use it and
>(ii) to the extent that they don't, they are asked (but not required
>to warrant) that the contributor makes sure it is compatible with the
>current licence.

If that's the intention it is entirely sensible, but quite different to what
I and others had understood!

The terms should say what they mean, and unambiguously enough that there can be
no dispute.  Legalese is a bad idea - we have seen plenty of cases where
reasonable people have attached quite different interpretations to the same
licence text or contributor terms (quite apart from questions of enforceability
or the scope of copyright law, which are obviously the domain of lawyers).  It
does not matter whose interpretation is correct - the fact that there is scope
for such confusion is a reason to rewrite it.

So if the contributor terms are meant to say 'you make a best effort to ensure
your contribution can be distributed under our current licences, even though
it need not be compatible with future licences we may choose, and we will take
the trouble to remove it if so' then they should say that.  On the other hand
if the intention is 'you grant a perpetual licence do do anything at all, so
we can therefore redistribute under practically any free licence including PD,
and you have made sure that your contributions are compatible with that' then
this must be made doubly clear, with an extra redundant paragraph if needed.

-- 
Ed Avis <eda at waniasset.com>