[OSM-talk] OSM layer into Adobe Illustrator?

[Roozbeh Pournader]

On 2/26/07, Richard Fairhurst <richard at systemed.net> wrote:
> No, it doesn't. OSM's data has a licence that was originally intended
> for something else entirely: [...]
> As a result, there are many, many interpretations of the licence, as
> the ensuing discussion proved. I think it's entirely reasonable for
> Philip to ask for clarification of what he may feel is an unclear
> licence: there may be others on the list who have already obtained
> such clarification and can share their experience with him.

I totally understand that different lawyers in different jurisdictions
may interpret a single written legal document differently (the
standards are different, the local laws are different, etc, etc). But
that's it, and when it gets sticky, there is the legal system of
courts and all that to take care of the mess.

Various different interpretations also exists for free software, and
the story of Linux kernel contributors is famous there. Linus Torvalds
thinks some uses of the kernel (e.g., linking binary-only drivers to
it) is not a violation of the license (GPL), while some other
contributors think it is a violation. Nothing can be said definitely,
of course.

The present situation of OSM is nothing new. Free/Open licenses
intended for something else have always been used for yet another
thing. The most famous and successful example is the Wikipedia: GFDL
was intended for software documentation, it was successfully used for
an encyclopedia, although one could definitely write a better license
for an encyclopedia. Does the Wikimedia Foundation consider options
like finding a better license and then dumping the database to restart
it from scratch with a license more suitable for an encyclopedia? I
don't think so.

Having fewer open licenses in the world is a good thing, not a bad
one. We don't necessarily need a whole family of CC license for maps,
another whole family for journals, yet another for blogs or wikis,
etc. We need people looking and saying "Ah, that's CC-BY-SA? I can
translate it to Pashto and use it on my blog then", or in a business
situation: "Ah, here it says CC-BY-SA-2.5 or later. Let me check the
document the legal department had written had about these. Ah, they
say CC-BY-3.0 and earlier are OK and I should list the name of the
copyright holder in the credits if he has mentioned it and then
forward all the info to the department to check its legality, but I
should contact the legal department for any other CC license before
even thinking about using it."

Roozbeh