[OSM-talk] [OSM-legal-talk] The OSM licence: where we are, where we're going

[Neil Penman]

I wasn't at the conference in Manchester but I would
not have put my 
hand up in favour of PD.  If the data is public domain
then there is a 
reasonable chance that a not particularly evil
corporation will take the 
best available map data from a number of sources,
including OSM, and 
make it available for editing by the public but under
their less than 
free license. 

This could effectively kill the OSM project as it
would always be second 
best and for all of us there would be no practical
reason not to prefer 
to contribute directly to the more complete project
better resourced 
project. 

Given the recent Knols initiative by Google I would
have thought that 
the importance of preserving the CC license in OSM has
been 
highlighted.  If Wikipedia data was released under a
public domain 
license the first version of Knols could have
contained all the current 
content of Wikipedia which would probably not have
survived much longer.

Hopefully I am wrong about the above scenario but I
think some effort in 
protecting the OSM  data will be worth it.

Neil Penman
Frederik Ramm wrote:
> Hi,
>
>   
>> I've posted an update on the OpenStreetMap
Foundation's current  
>> activity on the licence issue to the Opengeodata
blog:
>>     
>
> Thanks. 
>
> The license issue is important, it is, however, not
"one of the most
> debated aspects of the project" - I believe many
little tagging things
> range before it ;-)
>
> That's the OSM pragmatism coming through (if we
can't fix it, ignore
> it) but of course in this case this won't make the
issue go away. SO
> it is good to see some people working on this.
>
> I'm a bit sad about the fact that the Foundation
seems to be
> over-eager to avoid conflict of any sort. Yes, we're
in this together,
> and yes, we want to be a feel-good community and
have it warm and cosy
> and all; but we all remember the question about who
was in favour of
> going PD being asked at last year's SOTM, and we all
remember that
> there was an overwhelming majority in favour with
only a few voices
> against. 
>
> Now I'm all for respecting the desires of minorities
if practically
> possible, but if a poll of all contributors should
paint a similar picture,
> then I'd say let us go PD (or let's follow the CC
"open access data
> protocol") sooner rather than later. It is hard to
accept for me that
> such a small number of people should have the say
about the project we
> all built together. And if we should go PD, then
they're in a better
> position: They can fork the project under any
license they desire.
>
> I feel that the Foundation should at least poll the
contributors,
> outlining the situation and asking whether people
would prefer to use
> the basically-PD open access stuff or the ODC duo of
licenses. The
> result of this poll should not be binding for the
Foundation but given
> them an idea of what people want.
>
> Of course the wording of such a poll would have to
be carefully
> crafted and I suspect that this is what the
Foundation didn't want to
> get into, but I feel that's running away of sorts.
It should be
> possible to describe the alternatives objectively.
>
> My personal, slightly non-objective view, is
>
> PD - 
>   pros - easy to implement, legally trivial, does
not require
>     policing, compatible (on the usage side) with
any other data
>   cons - will lead to loss of data by people who do
not want to
>     support PD, and may have compatibility issues on
the import
>     side (e.g. cannot import data that mandates
attribution)
>
> CC -
>   pros - no loss of data, copyleft "spirit" remains
intact, world
>     becomes better place, legal requirement to give
stuff back to
>     OSM
>   cons - needs to be policed and enforced,
incompatible (on the
>     usage side) with other free and non-free
licenses, there will
>     always be uses that 99% of the community thinks
legitimate but
>     are not covered by license
>
> It's all a question of retain control over our work,
or just
> relinquish control and donate our work to whoever
wants it, including
> the evil guys.
>
> And I say this again, if I saw that a majority of
OSM contributers
> thinks that the copyleft aspect is important, then
I'd not have this
> discussion. It is just that it seems to me that
there are very few
> people who hold up the CC banner. And most of these,
after some
> thinking, silently retract their banner when I ask
them how they'd
> combine OSM data with a GNU FDL source and what the
result should be
> licensed under...
>
> Bye
> Frederik
>
>   






      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Be a better friend, newshound, and 
know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.  Try it now.  http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ