[Osmf-talk] Blanket copyright licence in Contributor Terms

[andrzej zaborowski]

2009/12/14 Matt Amos <matt at asklater.com>:
> Kai Krueger wrote:
>> So perhaps
>> this is a thing that we can put out for a vote "independent" of the
>> decision to move to ODbL to get a feel for how the general OSM community
>> stands on this point, and where their trade off lies with respect to the
>> pros and cons of this clause. This isn't something that should end up
>> endangering the overall move to ODbL.
>
> good idea. let's gather some opinions!

An argument on the side of the second option would be that if such a
time comes that OSM needs to switch away from ODbL then contributors
(those who don't "automatically" click any agreement they're
presented, which I thnk a lot of people do) may be more likely to
accept the new change because they have already given the licensing
issues thought during this vote, and there may even be a legal case to
support the change at that point.

Also it seems a number of people are attached to CC because of the
brand, in case of switching away from an ODC license this should be
less of an issue.

In turn being able to import ODbL licensed data sounds like a big win
and should help in convincing some CC-By-SA sources to agree to ODbL
too, in particular the source from which a lot of data in Poland comes
which is another community based project similar to OSM in concept but
older.

Cheers