[OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] ODbL vs CC-by-SA pros and cons

[Rob Myers]

On 09/02/2010 04:00 PM, Anthony wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 4:40 AM, Rob Myers<rob at robmyers.org>  wrote:
>> ODbL *is* share-alike for databases, with attribution.
>>
>> What it isn't is share-alike for produced works.
>
> And what it also isn't, is CC-BY-SA for databases.

It provides attribution and share-alike on databases.

> Because it is not share-alike for produced works,

BY-SA doesn't have a concept of produced works. It does have private 
use, collective works, compulsory licencing and other kinds of use that 
the share-alike doesn't cover.

So BY-SA is not reciprocal in every use case at every conceptual level 
of abstraction either. And there are cases where this doesn't fit 
people's expectations, notably in illustration (photographic and 
otherwise) as I've said.

> and because it requires distribution
> of source along with distribution of produced works.

You have to share the database alike, you mean? ;-)

BY-SA 3.0 almost replaced the anti-DRM clause with a parallel 
distribution clause. I think this is comparable, although I admit that 
the requirement not to charge for the database in some circumstances may 
be burdensome.

>> Even BY-SA doesn't cover absolutely everything it touches.
>
> Correct.  But irrelevant.

Entirely relevant. Read Richard's excellent post on how the ODbL and 
BY-SA compare conceptually, and read the odc-discuss post I just linked 
to in order to get more of a feel for this.

>> Making mash-ups easier and not excluding incompatible data sources in what
>> are now called produced works has always been a strong goal of the OSM
>> community that I've encountered.
>
> So you want to change the license (not just a flaw in the license, but
> an intentional feature of it).  Fine, go ahead, just be honest about
> what you're doing.

I *personally* have never bought the "let's make it easier for nice 
corporations to not free their data so people can just mash layers up" 
argument on either a legal or a moral level, but this is already how OSM 
treat the data under BY-SA.

- Rob.