[OSM-talk] What could we do to make this licences discussion more inclusive?

Frederik Ramm frederik at remote.org
Sat Jul 17 17:10:10 BST 2010


Hi,

80n wrote:
> We have never said to any contributors that their data is protected.  
> The only stipulation OSM ever made was that contributors had to agree to 
> license their data in a certain way before they were allowed to upload 
> it.

If we have really never said nor implied that our contributors' data was 
protected, then I'd say it is morally ok to simply relicense the whole 
thing ODbL and be done with it.

I do however believe that this would lead to an outcry because 
contributors believed otherwise. Who, if not we, has created that belief?

> But, it's an interesting point that maybe ODbL provides the protection 
> that we all thought CC-BY-SA was giving.  However it fails to do this.  

Depends on how you look at it, and this has been discussed endlessly. 
OSM is a project about data, and ODbL seems very well suited to protect 
that data(base), in an even stronger fashion than CC-BY-SA ever did 
(what with having to release intermediate databases which could have 
been kept proprietary under CC-BY-SA). At the same time it recognizes 
that trying to extend protection to non-data(base) things just reduces 
OSM's usefulness, and thus allows Produced Works to be published under 
any[*] license. Remember that the stated goal of OSM is to create a free 
world map, not to make sure some printed atlas or work of art somewhere 
is under a free license.

> It is clear that ODbL does a lot more than just fix CC-BY-SA so that it 
> works for data.  Why is that?

ODbL is a new license, it is not a patch against CC-BY-SA. I see nothing 
wrong with that; it is a product of a long and arduous community process 
in which people with very different views about licensing and what's 
good and what's bad for the project have agreed on a workable middle 
ground that protects what is essential to the project and releases what 
is non-essential.

As you know, those who invented CC-BY-SA tried to somehow adapt it for 
use with data, and came to the conclusion that they'd rather recommend 
all data be CC0. Which I still think is a good idea but I accept that I 
can't always have things my way if I want to be part of a community.

Bye
Frederik

[*] "any" has always been my reading, however there are others who claim 
that ODbL does in fact not allow you to publish under any license, but 
it must be some kind of attribution license. Here's Richard Fairhurst's 
take on this: 
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/2010-June/006292.html

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"




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