[Talk-GB] non-attributed map

[ndrw6]

On 06/09/2021 12:06, Simon Poole wrote:
> 
> Contrary to Amazon, the OSMF is the licensor of the OSM data and 
> naturally any assurances and statements the licensor makes with respect 
> to its interpretation of its licence will have, lets say, quite a lot of 
> weight in court. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel


Estoppel allows either side of a contract to use statements of the other 
side to its advantage (subject to some conditions). So, any OSMF 
statements that relax licensing requirements are potentially valid but 
any statements that add restrictions would be ignored, as licensee would 
simply choose the original license instead.

The issue is with the term "substantial", which is defined in ODbL as:

"'Substantial' – Means substantial in terms of quantity or quality or a 
combination of both. The repeated and systematic Extraction or 
Re-utilisation of insubstantial parts of the Contents may amount to the 
Extraction or Re-utilisation of a Substantial part of the Contents."

Translation: substantial means substantial and insubstantial may or may 
not (choose your preferred option) amount to substantial.

 From the legal point of view this whole clause means nothing at all. 
Your are right that a court could try to apply some common sense 
criteria or additional evidence but then it could not.

OSMF guidelines attempt to fix that by making statements like 
[insubstantial means] "less than 100 features" or "features relating to 
an area of up to 1,000 inhabitants". There are two problems with that, 
though:

Amazon (an example) is free to say to them UK road network is an 
insubstantial part of the OSM database ("it is less than 1% of all 
features in the database" or some other arbitrary but reasonable rule) 
and ignore OSMF guidelines as adding restrictions they did not agree to.

Contributors are free to say to them substantial meant "more than 10 
features" and accuse OSMF of violating contributor terms.

If the license is not clear - change it. There is a process for that. 
Otherwise, at best guidelines are advisory, at worst they themselves 
violate the agreement between OSMF and contributors.

ndrw6