[OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] offering adapted databases

[Steve Coast]

On Jul 8, 2011, at 5:16 PM, Anthony wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 8, 2011 at 7:23 PM, Steve Coast <steve at asklater.com> wrote:
>> shifting to legal
> 
> Can you at least get me off moderation for the duration of this discussion?

Not really my call.

>>> Is CloudMade acting within the spirit of the license when they display
>>> maps containing proprietary data which can be bought for only
>>> $295/year?  I don't see how they are, but apparently you think they
>>> are, right?
>> 
>> I have no idea, I don't work there.
> 
> If you don't know if this is within the spirit of the license, how can
> you expect me to?

It's not whether I know, it's whether I care to know. There are 100's of issues and I can't go in to depth on every single one. If you think there is a problem raise it with the LWG or the DWG and they will look at it. I'm peripherally involved in both, but trust that they would look at it in detail.

> By the way, you do still have an ownership stake in the company, don't you?

I can't make any public comments about that company.

>>>> Next, you don't have to make the database available. You can make the db
>>>> available, or the code.
>>> 
>>> What code?  I generally don't write all the code and then run the
>>> code.  I add a few things here, run a little bit of SQL there, find
>>> some mistakes and run some more SQL, build some indexes, transfer some
>>> files to EC2, run some scripts on EC2 which are too memory intensive
>>> for my home machine, transfer some files back, etc.
>>> 
>>> Making "the code" available doesn't work.
>> 
>> Well that's what the license says, there's community norms around this stuff
> 
> Yes, that's what the license says (*), and that's why I don't think I
> can comply with it.
> 
> (*) Actually, it says "A file containing all of the alterations made
> to the Database or the method of making the alterations to the
> Database (such as an algorithm), including any additional Contents,
> that make up all the differences between the Database and the
> Derivative Database."  That "additional Contents" part might be a
> pain.
> 
>>  http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License/Trivial_Transformations_-_Guideline
> 
> I'm not talking about trivial transformations.  I'm talking about
> downloading a few terabytes of LIDAR information, an OSM planet file,
> a bunch of shapefiles containing parcel shapes, and a bunch of data on
> parcel usage from the county property appraisers, and creating tiles
> from it.

My understanding is all you need to ship is the ruby script which does all that. You don't need to ship all those things you mention if they too are available. I am not a lawyer, of course, but that's my understanding.

>> It feels like you're just looking for a reason to say no.
> 
> I'm sorry you think that.  The reason I've posted this is that I'm
> looking for a reason to say yes.

I'm glad to hear it. Let's make some progress.

>> It's extremely
>> simple: It's there because of the concern you have. Just publish or point to
>> the code. Declaring it 'doesnt work' isn't helping or true.
> 
> I still don't know what you mean by "the code".  There's no code.  I
> run osm2pgsql, then I run some SQL, then I run ogr2ogr or whatever the
> heck the program is called.  Then mapnik, or gdal, or whatever.  I
> don't even remember what the process is.  I make it up as I go along.
> Maybe that's not a great design process, but it's what I do.

That sounds like a script to me. That's what I would mean by 'the code'.

> 
>> No license is going to be 100% perfect. Do you understand that?
> 
> Yes, I understand that.

:-)

>> We would all have a lot more time for you, I think, if your attitude was "ok
>> the license is basically done, we've spent years on it, lets get it done and
>> move on to version 2" rather than "I'm going to hold out with increasingly
>> outlandish scenarios until they delete my data".
> 
> What outlandish scenarios have I offered?  Mixing LIDAR and OSM and
> parcel data and making tiles, hosting those tiles, having someone come
> along and prints out the tiles and give them to a friend, is
> outlandish?

It is because I keep offering solutions to it which you dismiss out of hand. It doesn't feel like you're trying to find a way to make the solution work, but rather find a way to make sure it doesn't work. Let's see how you feel about releasing merely the script which does all the things you mention.

>> Personally I think your questions about how much time to keep the db for,
>> for example, are reasonable. The problem is I could sit here for 10 minutes
>> and come up with 10 reasonable looking questions like that about any license
>> and we would never get anywhere. So, my preference is we just finish this
>> phase and then work on implementing a bunch of fixes. But this "stasis of
>> concerns" in perpetuity isn't going to work.
>> 
>> If the LWG declared they would look at all those kinds of problems in a
>> 'version 2' would you join us?
> 
> What happens in the mean time?  I think the problems are serious
> enough that they need to be solved before CC-BY-SA is dropped.

Clearly you think that. And it's a somewhat reasonable point of view. The problem is that the LWG have been attacking these problems for many years and from, I think, their standpoint we're reaching smaller and smaller problems.

Think about it like this. There was one big problem that took a year. Then 10 problems which took 6 months. Then 100 which took 3 months... and so on to solve. Each is important to the individual concerned (like your derivative db question). I think we're reaching the point where people just don't like the answers rather than a lawyer having a fundamental problem with the answer. It's not to say they aren't still problems, they are. But do we continue this forever or do we pick a time to close the door on version 1 and fix the next batch in round 2? I'm not saying the LWG won't attack your question before or after, but I hope you understand that fundamental constraint that this cannot and probably will not go on forever.

>  At the
> very least, the questions need to be answered by OSMF/LWG as to their
> interpretation of the license.  You don't necessarily need a new
> version.  A statement by the LWG that "the offer must be good for one
> month, unless declined by the party receiving the produced work, and
> cannot be redeemed by third parties" would be sufficient to deal with
> the time/third party questions.  The question as to "what constitutes
> the database" is a little trickier...  If I'm making a tile at z=3
> that's going to be gigabytes of data (compressed) for a few hundred
> byte file.  And yes, if I'm using stock OSM I can just link to it by
> reference.  But if I'm using hundreds of gigabytes of LIDAR data,
> which I downloaded to my home machine and couldn't afford to host on
> the Internet...I guess that's when I say "send me a blank hard drive
> and the cost of shipping and I'll ship it to you".  (Or even better,
> convince archive.org to host it.)

That's one way to solve it, yes.

However, the LWG are being asked to make statements on everything these days so it's hard for them to process and it's something they're disinclined to do because it puts them in the position of giving legal advice (which is really bad), every time they do it they have to spend a ton of time on every statement, each statement is never perfect, even when they do make a statement someone demands a statement from me or the board.... and it just goes on. Like I say, if we have infinite time, or even another decade, this would all be reasonable. But I don't think we do.

> I'm certainly willing to participate in the discussion with LWG about
> how to fix these things in version 2.  Though, wouldn't ODC be the
> proper ones to do that?

Maybe, but that I think might be slower still than the LWG. I might be wrong.

> GPL has a three year time limit.  But keeping source code is, in my
> opinion, much easier than keeping database data.  I think a one month
> time limit would be good, and more than a year would be pretty awful.

That completely makes sense to me. The question is how do we get that implemented? Given all the work it would take, the legal and volunteer time, I suggest it's done in the next round. It's kind of neat because if we could move on now then by the time we implement that kind of time limit clause it wouldn't be a year or two (which is what you point out as awful) so we don't loose a lot. But, we do gain a lot by moving on.

Steve