[OSM-talk] License

[Richard Fairhurst]

Couple of licence replies in one so it's quicker for people to hit  
'delete'. I have put the ranty bits in brackets so you can skip over  
them even more easily. legal-talk at openstreetmap.org is that way ---> :)


Quoting A Morris <aledmorris2 at gmail.com>:

>>> I'm totally happy with my CC-licensed map data being used in proprietary
>>> navigation systems, speed camera warning systems, printed maps sold in
>>> shops, websites with adverts, etc, but when said vendor discovers a new
>>> speed camera, I want them to be forced to add that speed camera back
>>> into OSM.
>>>
>>> That simply won't happen if OSM is PD.
>>
>> It won't happen with CC either. That's not what the CC license says.
> I would have thought this situation would be considered a derivative work?
> Is this not the general opinion?

No. The "derivative work" provisions of CC-SA mean that your  
derivative work has to be released as CC-SA: _not_ that you have to  
publish the source vector data (as you would with GPL/LGPL) or that  
you have add it back into the OSM dataset.

In other words, if you use OSM data to create a road atlas, the whole  
road atlas will be freely photocopiable (under CC-SA) but you don't  
have to publish the vector data, let alone contribute it back into OSM.

(FWIW, I'm not a fan of ShareAlike licences in general but this  
situation leads me to think that an LGPL-like licence, which required  
people to publish the vector data, would be a better ShareAlike  
licence for us than CC-SA.)


Adrian Frith wrote:

> I have a question here: how is it possible that the CC license on the
> OSM data would allow proprietary users to redistribute it along with
> (say) speed camera data that is not CC-licensed, but prevent npemaps
> from redistributing it along with /their/ non-CC-licensed data?
>
> Or am I misinterpreting the situation?

Proprietary users can redistribute OSM data with non-CC-SA data if  
they take care to make it a "collective work" rather than a  
"derivative work". The consensus seems to be that different layers on  
a webmap is enough for that. So you can have your OSM data in one  
layer, your speed camera data in another, and that's ok.

(Again IMO, this is a failing in that it discriminates against print  
cartographers who don't have such an option.)

Our situation at npemaps is a little different in that we're not  
talking about redistribution, we're talking about derivation. Finding  
the position of a building (with postcode LE15 6HF) by reference to  
the junction of two roads drawn by OSM is arguably a derivative work.  
Therefore, according to CC-SA, it must be licenced as CC-SA.


+1 to Frederik's contribution, and especially to Jamie's idea of a  
"grant of rights" and Mike's backing for such.

cheers
Richard