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

[Francis Davey]

On 18 November 2010 10:54, Ed Avis <eda at waniasset.com> wrote:
>
> From my point of view, I think that is a feature, not a bug.  The extent of
> copyright, database right and other laws is best decided by individual countries
> and it is IMHO misguided to try to override the compromise between public and
> private interests made by a particular society.
>

I'm not suggesting its a bug - least of all in the licence. But its a
reason why its hard to get a straight answer.

> However that's just opinion.  More interesting is your remark about 'no
> contractual relationship' - which makes one ask, why have the attempted
> contract-law stuff in the ODbL at all?  Could it not be stripped out?
> An ODbL-lite with the contract law stuff removed is a licence I could live with.
>

Well, you'd have to ask ODbL designers about that. My understanding is
that its the best that can be done to make the level of protection of
database style rights more uniform. Some jurisdictions have a right in
databases, others don't (or protect them much less). So the idea is to
require licensees under ODbL to agree contractually to respect a right
which, in some jurisdictions, would apply by default anyway.

Again, don't ask me _why_ or if this is a good idea or anything like that.

-- 
Francis Davey