[OSM-talk] [Announce] OSMF license change vote has started

[Sebastian Hohmann]

Anthony schrieb:
> On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 4:18 AM, Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:
> 
>> However, one thing you should perhaps consider is this argument of "project
>> sanity": We're all in this together. It's no good having a license that has
>> different effects in different countries.
> 
> 
> And that is one of the exact problems with the ODbL.  Under the ODbL, in
> some jurisdictions the database is protected by database, copyright, and
> contract law.  In other jurisdictions, it's protected only by contract law.
> 
> In the United States, which is a prominent example of "anything goes", the
> ODbL would likely not hold up in a court of law anyway.  First of all,
> unless there's some sort of "click-through", there's no real indication of
> assent.  Even if you want to argue that the TOS is binding (and that's
> probably going to be an expensive argument), it's only binding if the site
> you download the data from has the TOS.  Then, once you prove that there's a
> contract in place, it's effectively useless.  You can't sue for injunctive
> relief, that's just not a remedy available for breach of contract.  You
> could try to sue for specific performance, but it's highly unlikely you'd
> get it.  So you're left with a suit under a state law breach of contract and
> you get actual damages, likely nothing.
> 
> OSM absolutely *should* be released under a license which is treated as
> similarly as possible in all jurisdictions.  That license is CC0.
> 

I don't know about that legal stuff in detail, but I agree that CC0 
would probably be the best licence. If OSM won't go and really try to 
sue people, why protect the data? And why protect the data at all? It's 
not something that can be stolen. The data will always be there, even if 
some bad company comes and uses it. We don't have to protect our data to 
make money, like some company might have to, to pay their expenses. Even 
if some big company would use OSM to earn a lot of money without 
attributing, it would still be advertising for OSM, because it shows how 
much the data is worth. And everyone can make a free alternative, 
because even if the data is worth that much, it is still free.

And after all, any licence that restricts the use to "keep the data 
free" makes it less free for many uses, including ones that most people 
would probably support. With CC0 and some "non-binding contract" that 
says "please attribute OSM if you want to support it", there would be 
very few legal ambiguities.

What troubles me is that nobody ever asked the community what they want. 
To just asume that everyone who joined OSM is happy with what CC-BY-SA 
tries to do (if it would for OSM), is wrong in my opinion:

* People change their mind. They might have liked the licence in the 
first place, but after some time they might actually prefer another one.
* People might not have realized what licence OSM actually used when 
they joined because they were so excited with all that "free" and 
"open"-data stuff.
* People had no choice. They might have accepted CC-BY-SA just because 
there was no alternative.

Whatever the reason is, contributors might have a different opionion on 
CC-BY-SA than what is assumed by some people. It probably wouldn't have 
mattered, since they, after all, agreed to the licence. But now we are 
changing the licence anyway. So why not ask the people who contribute to 
OSM what they really want? The result might be quite different from what 
some see as consensus, it might turn out to be exactly as expected, 
based on the fact that all contributors agreed to the current licence. 
But the fact is, we don't really know.

Greetings