[OSM-talk] Open Database Licence

[Michael Collinson]

At 01:09 PM 9/16/2008, Frederik Ramm wrote:
>Hi,
>
>Steve Chilton wrote:
> > Webmapper blogged yesterday about the recent OpenStreetMap Users Day in
> > Holland (http://www.webmapper.net/), where Henk (and others)
> > presented/discussed the possible move to ODL licensing.
> > Could someone summarise where we are on the licence issue for the
> > Opengeodata blog or the wiki.
>
>I'll summarise here: We have no changes to report since the last
>Opengeodata blog entry about the licensing. The last "official"
>statement I heard was at this year's SOTM conference where we were told
>that the license draft was undergoing review by "a second set of legal
>eyes" or something like that.
>
>I suspect that the fact that Jordan Hatcher, the brain behind much of
>the initial draft, has taken on a new job (which made it impossible for
>him to talk at SOTM) has slowed down things considerably. Also, I had
>the impression that Richard Fairhurst was the foundation officer most
>active on the topic of discussing, finding, and implementing a new
>license, and Richard has not stood for re-election... (but him being
>most active may just be a misconception because he took on the role of
>communicating with the broader public while everyone else sweated in
>private).
>
>Put in other words: The license debate looks pretty much stalled if you
>ask me.
>
>Bye
>Frederik

Jordan has done great work but as he is connected with the drafting 
itself for a more general audience, we also need that "second pair of 
eyes"  as a completely independent review done from the perspective 
of OSM/OSMF only. That has fallen through ... things move slowly in 
the legal world when you don't have much money :-(.  I'll post an 
update as soon as I hear anything.

Mike
OSMF board