[OSM-legal-talk] License Working Group news

[Michael Collinson]

Hi thanks to all for responding and in particular to the offers of help 
from Luis, Thomas and Diane.

I use Luis' email below to give more detail about our activities. See 
in-line.

It is also now my strong personal opinion that we should now engage a 
paid part-time General Counsel but that needs discussion and OSMF 
consensus. We are currently completely volunteer, so it is a big step

On 19/11/2014 00:57, Luis Villa wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 18, 2014 at 1:46 PM, Paul Norman <penorman at mac.com 
> <mailto:penorman at mac.com>> wrote:
>
>     On 11/18/2014 10:11 AM, Luis Villa wrote:
>>     On Mon, Nov 17, 2014 at 11:18 AM, Michael Collinson
>>     <mike at ayeltd.biz <mailto:mike at ayeltd.biz>> wrote:
>>
>>         I would also like to highlight that we also now welcome
>>         associate members who can help us occassionally or want to
>>         work on a specific topic that fires you up. This involves no
>>         specific formalities nor duties. 
>>
>>
>>     Hi, Mike, others-
>>     Is there a formal description somewhere of the
>>     roles/responsibilities of the WG? That would help me evaluate to
>>     what extent (if at all) I can participate in WG activities.
>     The scope of the LWG is listed at
>     http://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Licensing_Working_Group
>
Also, here is our 2013+ Action Plan which was formally submitted to the 
board and so represents our formal scope document:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D3KwSM_BO7KkcbVADQVVn7eFwkD-RNauMwidhhlVPsI/pub

and for, completeness, draft 2014 Action Plan:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qRH5-LtzXiLhFFoo4iDu8mKfIUv1dhLYTwRZxBgNhJ8/pub

>
> Thanks, Paul. I hope you and the rest of the group don't mind me 
> asking some more questions.
>
>     https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BWn372ow_1tnTdQja76mthS8V-ZQ5PCL_RWLR1CBzkw/pub
>     has some of the work we'd like to take on in the near future.
>
>
> Interesting. How often does the group meet, in practice? Is there also 
> a fair bit of email between meetings, or...?

We've progressively wound down from 2 meetings a week(!) to one per 
month, which is about right.  The current gap in frequency is, I hope, 
transient. We have a low volume of emails in between on strategic 
discussion and have also been experimenting with circular resolutions.  
We are also getting an increasing amounts of license enqurires along the 
lines of "I intend to XYZ, is it OK to use your data".
>
> It mentions referrals to outside counsel - is that still WSGR or is it 
> someone else?
Yes, WSGR.  We occassionally ask for, and get pro bono advice, on 
specific issues.
>
> I note quite a few non-licensing topics—DMCA, Facebook, etc. Are those 
> common or is this unusually timed?
Not very common.  I wanted to keep our name as License Working Group to 
emphasize our strategic direction and nature. Our primary task is " the 
promotion of open geospatial data through practical, coherent and clear 
licensing". But we are a catch-all for anything considered "legal". I am 
also keen on the area of risk mitigation, so conducting a DMCA review in 
conjunction with our Data Working Group was an important but finite 
activity. One other thing we've been involved in is "policy" documents, 
for example outlining our general position to diplomats on issues such 
as geographic name clashes and disputed borders ... we create a final 
draft that goes to the board for endorsement.
>
>     We haven't worked out a precise framework for the scope of
>     individual associate members - it's not expected that all
>     associate members would participate in all parts of the LWG's work.
>
>     If associate members not having a vote would allow people to help
>     who would otherwise be in a conflict of interest, that could be
>     done too.
>
>
> How often are votes actually held? Or is it mostly consensus-based anyway?
Except for our circular resolutions experiments where it is practical, I 
believe we have never actually had or needed a vote! My general policy 
has been that we are deliberately a group of people with disparate 
personal views, on for example what type of license we should have, and 
that if we do not have unamimous agreement, or at least assent, then we 
have not reached the right solution.
>
> Does the WG have formal legal obligations as a committee of the board 
> (or otherwise) or is it informal/advisory? (To explain that another 
> way: in some organizations, groups like the LWG are board committees, 
> and so certain formal requirements apply to their members — duties of 
> good faith, attendance, voting rules, etc. In some orgs, they are 
> essentially purely advisory so have no formal legal obligations.)
Informal/advisory. It would be good to go beyond our scope document 
above to formally define that ... something we could use help on!
>
> Thanks-
> Luis
>
> -- 
> Luis Villa
> Deputy General Counsel
> Wikimedia Foundation
> 415.839.6885 ext. 6810
>
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>
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Mike
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