[OSM-legal-talk] Best license for future tiles?

[Ed Avis]

M∡rtin Koppenhoefer <dieterdreist at ...> writes:

>> I don't think a change to public domain licensing could cause any
>> compatibility problem.
>
>PD but still with certain conditions respected: no re-engineering,
>attribution, etc. like requested by the OdbL? As far as I understand
>this, while the tiles themselves might be quite unrestricted, the
>contained data still won't be --- also under OdbL.

Yes, this is one of the more unpleasant aspects of the licence, at least under
some interpretations.  It's allowed to make proprietary, all-rights-reserved
map renderings, but if you want to produce a truly CC-licensed or public domain
one you can't.  (This refers to the no-tracing restrictions; an attribution
requirement is more reasonable.)

One of the main problems with the proposed ODbL/DbCL setup is that it's pretty
murky what is allowed and what isn't allowed; and also quite unclear whether the
things that are disallowed are truly enforceable, or just magic text which has
no real weight.  If OSM itself produced a public domain tileset, the clarity of
the action would compensate a bit for the uncertainty of the licence; it would
be clear for all that rendered map tiles can be distributed under any terms.

>Btw: isn't a rendering a derived database as well?

Quite possibly.  In my view the attempt to shoehorn a map into a 'database' is
not the best way to look at things; the distinction between 'database' and
'database contents' seems nonsensical in the case of map data, and indeed you
can argue that a rendered map is just as much a 'derived database' as a
'produced work'.

(I much prefer the simplicity of the CC-BY-SA licence where if it is subject to
copyright, the licence applies, and if not, it doesn't.  The scope of copyright
is something that courts and legislation address directly, whereas the legal
contortions of the ODbL will never be truly clarified unless a specific case
goes to court.)

-- 
Ed Avis <eda at waniasset.com>