[OSM-legal-talk] Rights granted to OSMF (Section 2 of the CT)

[Frederik Ramm]

Eugene,

On 04/17/2011 06:39 AM, Eugene Alvin Villar wrote:
> Some people have problems with section 2 of the proposed CT because of
> granting of rights to OSMF.

[...]

> Clearly this is not that big a problem for Apache contributors, why
> should it be a big problem for OSM contributors

True. Also, some people misrepresent the CT as being a "copyright 
assignment" or even "transfer of copyright" when indeed it is only a 
narrow, qualified permission to relicense; even of OSMF were taken over 
by the lizard men they would not be able to choose a different license 
unless that is free and open and accepted by 2/3 of active mappers.

So I really don't see the problem.

I'd hate to see someone go and say "we don't want your contribution". 
But if any mapper really believes that at some point in the future, they 
will want to withdraw their data from OSM because 2/3 of mappers choose 
a free and open license that this mapper might not be comfortable with - 
then that mapper's attitude is simply not something that we can live 
with in a community project, where lots of others will have built upon 
that mapper's work by that time. If we wanted to accept that mapper's 
contributions, we would always have to keep them separate and flagged 
"please don't build on this as it may be withdrawn later". That is not 
feasible for this edifice we're erecting together. Hard as it is, but if 
someone is not willing to make that commitment then they cannot be part 
of the project.

Bye
Frederik