[OSM-legal-talk] Refusing CT but declaring contributions as PD

James Livingston lists at sunsetutopia.com
Thu Aug 25 07:25:34 BST 2011


On 25 August 2011 02:00, andrzej zaborowski <balrogg at gmail.com> wrote:

> This is a different topic but last I heard the CT don't assure
> everything you upload is ODbL compatible, but rather than "your
> contribution" is compatible with all the licenses that may be chosen
> by OSMF -- and that everything you uploaded is as far as you know
> compatible with the current license, i.e. CC-By-SA.
>


There are two separate things there:
a) "your contribution" is compatible with all the licenses that may be
chosen by OSMF
b) everything you uploaded is as far as you know compatible with the current
license, i.e. CC-By-SA.


I don't think that data under any licence other than PD could satify (a)
because the OSMF can chose any free an open license (subject to a vote
etc.). Given the unknown conditions of a future license, you can't guarantee
compatibility of your data with a future one. That means that if a
re-license were to occur in future, OSMF would somehow have to figure out
what data was compatible and what wasn't.

I agree about (b), that it sounds like the only requirement clause 1a adds
on uploaded data is compatilbility with CC-BY-SA (as it's the "current
license terms").



On the assumption that clause 2 only extends as far as you can grant those
rights, I don't see what would prevent someone from agreeing to the CTs and
then uploading CC-BY-SA data (other than politeness and social pressure).

After the transition to ODbL, I would assume that people are okay with
contributors uploading ODbL-licensed data; for example something that they
have downloaded and then edited.

-- 
James
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