[Local-chapters] Actions concerning the license

[Serge Wroclawski]

I wanted to give a little time in between issues to discuss...

The other issue that came up in the meeting, for the US group, was
this sentence:

"All actions concerning the license must be approved by the Foundation."

Our understanding of this was was a way of saying "The OSMF will
direct the license of the OSM dataset", which would mean things like
changing the license from CCBYSA to ODbL, updating the ODbL, etc.

That makes good sense, but the wording seemed a vague.

At the meeting, Henk explained that it wasn't just the license, but
any action around the license. He gave the example of a chapter
creating a document which summarized the OSM license and specified
requirements for import. Coincidentally I'd made such a document a few
weeks earlier and discussed it on the osm-professional list.

It summarizes the requirements for an organization to submit data into
OSM according to the license (either CCBYSA or OBbL).

>From the phone conference, it would appear that the OSMF would want
final approval of any such document.

I understand the desire of the OSMF to control the license, but I
don't see why the OSMF would be in control of documents around the
license (unless they were patently false, for example).

The Chapters are going to be doing outreach and part of that outreach
will need to cover the license, especially if we're talking to
organizations. Requiring prior approval for all documents regarding
the license seems like an immense amount of work on the part of the
OSMF, and something which could greatly hinder the Chapters.


With this and the other concern I brought up in the other thread, I'd
like to strongly suggest the wording of the license section be
something more like:


Data license

The OpenStreetMap Foundation is the publisher of the OpenStreetMap
database and has therefore the primary responsibility over the
dataset. Chapters should be committed to keeping the OpenStreetMap
dataset unified and under the primary responsibility of the OSMF and
will retain primary leadership over the data and its license.



- Serge