[OSM-legal-talk] Any expert CC-BY -> ODbL negotiators?

[Andrew Harvey]

> Thanks, Jukka.  I suspect that "permission" isn't actually valid, as it
> seems to extend from data.gov.au (Federal government) but most of the
> datasets there are state or territory (eg, the VicMap Rivers dataset), and
> are published on the relevant state/territory data portals (data.vic.gov.au,
> data.act.gov.au) etc.

This is the original statement
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Attribution/data.gov.au_explicit_permission
whereby data.gov at finance.gov.au gave OSM permission to redistribute
all CC BY data available through data.gov.au (regardless of original
publishing agency) under "a free and open license, including the Open
Database License" so long as OSM provides the attribution on it's
Contributors page.

I do question that validity, but if you take it as true then I believe
this means that all you need is this state data to be re-published at
data.gov.au for OSM to republish it under a it's ODbL license
relieving downstream users of any requirements to attribute the
government agency (only OSM), even if the original state agency
doesn't agree with this relicensing.

I would still rather we find some way that each government agency can
release their data such that we can use it in OSM without needing
explicit permission. I think it's a bit unfair to ask people to
release their data as CC0 when OSM won't, so if the attribution issue
can be fixed in a future CC BY version I think that would be the best
way forward.