[OSM-legal-talk] Adopt a PD-Mapper ....... was Re: Refusing CT but declaring contributions as PD

[Jonathan Harley]

On 01/09/11 09:37, John Smith wrote:
> On 1 September 2011 18:25, Simon Poole<simon at poole.ch>  wrote:
>> Obviously I would clearly prefer that the mappers in question simply
>> discover some pragmatism and get over any issues they may have with the
>> OSMF.
> That's an interesting spin on things, wouldn't the pragmatic approach
> be for OSM-F to work with CC to come up with a CC-by-SA license that
> is deemed more suitable?
>

If it was more suitable it wouldn't be CC BY-SA, would it? In which 
case, why work with the copyright-focussed Creative Commons rather than 
Open Data Commons?

> Not that I see anything wrong with the current license, in fact the
> whole exercise seems like a knee jerk reaction because some think
> something "must be done".

It might seem like a knee jerk until you realise that the process has 
been going on for well over three years, and counting. Slowest knee jerk 
EVER!

Something must clearly be done (CC BY-SA prevents use in combination 
with data that has incompatible licenses, and mandates that contributors 
must be credited; both of which are pretty much ignored at the moment).

PD would be a perfectly good solution in the eyes of many, including me, 
but some people feel their work must be "protected" from commercial 
users who might want to improve it without sharing. If you like the 
intent of current license, you should like ODbL because it enforces that 
intent much more effectively, without the pitfalls of CC BY-SA.

J.

-- 
Jonathan Harley    :     Managing Director     :     SpiffyMap Ltd

Email: md at spiffymap.com   Phone: 0845 313 8457   www.spiffymap.com
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