[OSM-talk] [OSM-legal-talk] Are closed issues really closed & post ODbL data removal plan

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason avarab at gmail.com
Mon Dec 7 15:30:49 GMT 2009


On Mon, Dec 7, 2009 at 14:32, Matt Amos <zerebubuth at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 8:36 PM, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason
> <avarab at gmail.com> wrote:
>> So my question is:
>>
>>  1. The closed issue I referred to contains the text "OSMF counsel
>> does not believe" on something that seems to have fundamental
>> significance to how the transition will be performed. Specifically the
>> question of (addressed in my December 2008 mail) how we determine
>> whether ODbL licensed works are derived from things still under the
>> CC-BY-SA in February.
>>
>> The OSMF counsel seems to suggest that we only have to worry about
>> this on a per-object basis, i.e. if there are some CC-BY-SA-only edits
>> in the history of a given node/way/relation but I'd have thought we'd
>> also have to worry about the case where someone has traced hundreds of
>> amenity=* nodes from the layout of what's now a CC-BY-SA-only road
>> network. But OSMF counsel thinks it's "not necessary to remove nearby
>> or adjoining elements".
>>
>> I know the OSMF contacted outside legal counsel to comment on the ODbL
>> itself but has it solicited a second pair of eyes on these open/closed
>> issues? It would be interesting to know whether other lawyers take
>> such a narrow view of what constitutes a derived work.
>
> it would be interesting, and OSMF have contacted other lawyers for
> their opinion on other matters, but we only had one response. this
> doesn't fill me with confidence that if we asked for legal advice we
> would have many responses. on the other hand, OSMF counsel is a good
> lawyer, and i would expect him to know what he's talking about.
>
> if you know any lawyers who would be willing to give legal advice
> pro-bono, LWG would be very happy to hear about it.

I've contacted Wikimedia legal about this. Since we'll be using OSM
data this is a concern for Wikimedia. We'll see if they're interested
in reviewing it.

>> 2. Is anyone working on the technical side of the CC-BY-SA-only data
>> removal, e.g. filtering the planet to throw out objects which have
>> CC-BY-SA-only data in their history? I haven't seen anything on dev@
>> about this or on the wiki. What's the plan?
>
> yes. the plan (subject to change based on technical feasibility, of
> course) is here:
>
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License/Backup_Plan#Marking_elements_.22OK.22
>
> the key is that there must be an uninterrupted chain of ODbL-licensed
> elements from the first version of the element, followed by a
> referential integrity cleanup. at this point it's not clear that the
> relicensing will go ahead, but if it does you'll see more discussion
> of this on dev at .

Cool. I'll stay posted.




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