[OSM-legal-talk] CTs and the 1 April deadline

[Ed Avis]

Frederik Ramm <frederik at ...> writes:

>Could someone, of that disposition, let's call him A, not simply do the 
>following: Make a contract with person B that says "Dear B, you may use 
>my data but only under ODBL 1.0 and nothing else"; then instruct B to 
>upload the stuff to OSM. Now the data is in OSM, but in the event of any 
>later license change, B (and therefore A) would have to be consulted.

This does seem to be possible from a strictly legalistic point of view.

I think that in the CTs (as in other things) we should concentrate more on the
spirit of the agreement than on trying to armour-plate it in legalese.  It would
be better to have a free and obvious choice:

  (A) I am happy to license my data under the currently used licences, and I am
      also happy for the OSMF to relicense it in the future.  (I understand that
      the OSMF has agreed to hold a vote of active contributors in such a case.)

  (B) I will contribute data under the current licences but I would like to be
      asked again if some different licence is chosen in the future.  (I am aware
      that both CC-BY-SA and ODbL have upgrade clauses of various kinds, so it
      is possible for new versions of these licences to be published and used
      without requiring additional permission from me.)

Given such a choice and the appropriate community expectations, most people would
choose option (A) if they trust the OSMF to do the right thing.

-- 
Ed Avis <eda at waniasset.com>