[OSM-legal-talk] data derived from UK Ordnace Survey

[Kai Krueger]

Robert Whittaker (OSM) wrote:
> 
> On 16 June 2011 09:55, Richard Fairhurst <richard at systemed.net>
> wrote:
>> Robert Whittaker wrote:
>>> A major purpose of the CTs is to ensure that all the data
>>> remaining in OSM is suitable for re-licensing under any "Free
>>> and Open" license without the need for further checks.
>>
>> No, that hasn't been the case since Contributor Terms 1.2 were proposed
>> in
>> November 2010 and subsequently adopted.
>>
>> 1.2.x say: "If you contribute Contents, You are indicating that, as far
>> as
>> You know, You have the right to authorize OSMF to use and distribute
>> those
>> Contents under our _current_ licence terms" (my emphasis).
> 

Frederik Ramm wrote:
> 
> On 06/16/11 12:31, Dermot McNally wrote:
>>> Does that not effectively rule out any future relicensing because the
>>> burden
>>> of checking existing data is just too high? I mean, how would one even
>>> *begin* to perform such a check, given that nobody is actually obliged
>>> to
>>> tell us what license restriction his externally-sourced data might be
>>> under?
> 

Although it still seems to be controversial how clause 1 and 2 of the CT
interact, with the recent draft intent of the LWG to issue a clarifying
statement[1] that indeed data only has to be compatible with the current
license and thus clause 2 only applies to the rights held by the contributor
and not to all data contributed by the contributor, it might be a good time
to think about the practical implications of this.

As it currently stands, I am kind of with Frederik, that this basically
effectively rules out any future relicensing, as it is impossible to know
which rights (and restrictions) exist in the data at the moment.

Nevertheless, I think it is a reasonably good compromise between the
position of making it possible to use data other than PD data and still
having the flexibility to relicense if there really is a necessity in
future.

So the question is what can we do to make this compromise practically
feasible?


Frederik Ramm wrote:
> 
> This situation could be made a little less of a problem by requesting 
> that anyone who contributes data that is not available for arbitrary 
> relicensing under the CT (i.e. any free and open license etc.etc.) 
> should flag such data in a well-defined way. Then, in a future 
> relicensing process we could assume that any data not flagged can be 
> relicensed at will, and only data that is flagged needs to be more 
> closely investigated.
> 
I think this will be key. For all data, it needs to be clear a) who holds
any rights in the data and b) what exact restrictions apply to the data.

For all data originally collected by an osm contributor this is clearly
stated in clause 2. But there currently is no way to flag data as having
additional restrictions applied (because it is a third party import with an
attached license)

The best we currently have is the wiki import catalogue[2], but a) not all
imports are registered there and b) a lot of entries are useless with
respect to the exact licensing terms of the data and what agreements exist.

The most logical place perhaps to record such info is the OSM account. All
data that is contributed to OSM for which not all rights stated in section 2
of the contributor terms are given to OSMF, needs to be contributed under a
special osm account to which the exact licensing requirements are attached
and contact details of the original rights holder.

It is to some degree already the recommended practice, but it is in no way
enforced. For future relicensing to remain feasible, this would however need
to be enforced. 

For existing accounts, that have previously mixed data, it might need a more
fine grained possibility e.g. per changeset, to parcel out the rights held
in the data again.


Frederik Ramm wrote:
> 
> It is too late to upgrade the CT with such a requirement, but we could 
> still set up a community norm to that effect.
> 

I don't think it is too late to upgrade the CT, to clarify this and make it
explicit that you need to use a special osm account with a link to the
license if you cannot grant all rights mentioned in clause 2 and can only
"comply" with clause 1. These are local changes (unlike any changes to e.g.
the voting requirements), so there shouldn't be a problem if different
accounts use different versions of the CT, like it is already the case with
version 1.0 and 1.2.4.

Kai

 
[1] https://docs.google.com/View?id=dd9g3qjp_121dzjmk5c5
[2] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Import/Catalogue

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