[OSM-legal-talk] OS Opendata & the new license

[Francis Davey]

On 24 September 2010 13:04, 80n <80n80n at gmail.com> wrote:
> The contributor terms are asking people to agree to something that they
> cannot.

My suggestion - which I believe has been/is being chewed over by the
LWG - is that the CT's make an alternative arrangement for
contributors who want to contribute material that is licensed under
some other licence.

The way in which clause 2 works gives maximum flexibility to OSMF but
it will often not be compatible with open licenses that are in common
use - as you point out. Clause 2 is great for contributor generated
data, but less apt for data owned by governments licensed under CC.

As a general rule, saying what you mean in a contract is always a good
idea. If the plan is that contributors are intended to be able to
contribute CC material, then it might not be a bad thing for the CTs
to say so.

One way to do this is to give a short + long list in the CT: i.e.
state that in the alternative to clause 2, the data is licensed under
CC or under one of a list of licenses published by OSMF (which can
then be updated over time at need, for example to deal with OS's
licenses). That way, OSMF can decide what licenses it can accept, and
contributors don't have to worry too much. If they are concerned they
just check the list and email someone to ask for a new licence to be
added if need be.

The main disadvantage of this method is that decisions about what data
to accept will preclude future decisions about licensing by the OSMF.
It might be nice to be able to keep all options open for the future,
but that could only be the situation where contributors are
contributing only their own data. As soon as you start permitting
other datasets you have to deal with potential conflicts.

-- 
Francis Davey