[OSM-talk] License plan - minimum-legalese option

[Ed Avis]

Frederik Ramm <frederik <at> remote.org> writes:

>Could we perhaps shred all this legalese then, be done with the license 
>(which is, in effect, an attempt at codifying things in a manner you and 
>Steve have just discounted), and instead write an one-page statement of 
>intent that says how we'd like our data to be used and how not, and 
>that's it?

Excellent idea.

Or if I might make a slightly different suggestion: keep the CC-BY-SA licence
because that's what we have, and it's the standard adopted by Wikipedia and
other collections of free content.

For the benefit of countries where a database right exists, and 'for the
avoidance of doubt' as the ODbL says, add a short remark that the OSM foundation
(which is the entity which has collated together all of the individual bits of
mapmaking work into a giant database) will not assert its database right to stop
distribution of OSM data, provided it's done under the CC-BY-SA.

It is not necessary to have a big relicensing-and-deletion exercise to add this
extra waiver of database rights, because everyone already agreed to let OSM
distribute the data under CC-BY-SA and that's all we are doing.

-- 
Ed Avis <eda at waniasset.com>