[OSM-legal-talk] Can someone summarise arguments for/against clause 2 of CTs?

[Stephen Gower]

On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 11:57:34AM +1000, Steve Bennett wrote:
> 
> Just wondering if someone could summarise what the deal with clause 2
> is, since that's the one NearMap objects to most:

I'm assuming Good Faith on behalf of the Foundation and Working Groups here
- no conspiracy theories here about this being about a *planned* step after
ODbL to a particular type of more (or less) liberal license. In that spirit,
Clause 2 is the enabling clause for Clause 3, so that's where to look first.

Clause 3 codifies and simplifies the process for the next re-licencing,
whenever it may be. In the current process, data from contributors who
individually agree to re-licence their edits will be included in the ODbL
release of OSM and data from those who refuse will not be included, but
there are a large number of past contributors who cannot be contacted. As
things stand, the data from these uncontactables will have to be deemed
insignificant as far as copyright law goes, or also deleted.  In 5, 10, 15
years, or whenever circumstances mean a new licence is appropriate, there
will be many many more uncontactables, and given they will have contributed
under ODbL, there will be less wriggle-room to declare their contributions
insignficant. Clause 3 puts restrictions on a future relicence - most
significantly there must be 2/3rds support of the active contributors at the
time.

Clause 2 assigns to the OSMF the legal rights that would be needed for them
to re-licence, assuming the conditions in Clause 3 are met.

s