[Osmf-talk] License with or without virus

[Henk Hoff]

We have had a very long process of getting to where we are now. There was
always a pretty consistent message from the Foundation "we want to keep the
SA and BY clauses in place". We simply cannot ask the membership to go for a
license without these provisions. Not at this time, just before the
membership vote.

The question now is: is ODbL a better license for OSM than CC-BY-SA. yes or
no.

For arguments sake: if we've decided yes, we can go into a transition fase
to get the data into this license.
After (or maybe even: during) that we can have a debate on "now we have
ODbL, do we still need SA or BY or whatever other clause.
Abandoning SA or BY is an very major change in our license and has major
consequences. That needs a good debate within the community. Maybe also a
thorough debate in the next State of the Map. Going non-viral because it's
"trendy" is not a very strong argument (to put it mildly ;-) )  Such a
debate will only delay the process further (which is already taking ages...)

BTW: It's not about what I personally want with my data, but what is best
for the OSM-project as a whole.
- Let's say OSM is not going viral. In that case we cannot import datasets
that require SA. So where potentially missing out datasets. (e.g. Canada)
- If we're going viral: we can import datasets with SA requirement but also
dataset without SA requirement.


I'm more than happy to debate the need for whatever clause we need or don't
need in our license. But let us try first whether ODbL is better or not. We
can always make it more open in the (near) future. The other way round is a
lot harder.

Cheers,
Henk



2009/12/4 Jaak Laineste <jaak at nutiteq.com>

>     Is there actually consensus about share-alike clause? I guess that
> contributors love it and users hate it, just as with GPL/LGPL software
> license options. The quick poll showed no clear preference among
> contributors.
>
>
>
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