[OSM-talk] Suggestion to add SA clause to CT section 3, describing "free and open license"

[andrzej zaborowski]

Hi,

On 20 July 2010 01:32, Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:
> The proposed license change makes two concessions to the PD advocates. One
> is that you get a (symbolic) chance of officially declaring your
> contribution PD. This does not have legal relevance, as you cannot extract
> PD data from an ODbL protected database without triggering ODbL's
> share-alike, but at least the PD faction can make their voices heard. The
> other is that the contributor agreement does not completely rule out moving
> to PD at a later time, if a large enough majority of OSM contributors should
> favour that.
>
> These two concessions are really minor and are a long way from actually
> making anything in OSM PD. They are certainly not a victory for the PD
> faction, but they are a token of respect towards them, and they will make
> many a PD advocate accept the new license. These concessions are about
> building consensus, they are the result of people sitting around a (virtual)
> table and trying to find a way forward together that can be carried by
> everyone.

Letting some mappers choose to only release their data under ODbL does
not have to eliminate the other mappers' ability to choose PD and make
their voice heard.  So I think there's a way to retain the first
concession and make the "I can only license my edits under a
share-alike license that I have read and want to be contacted if you
need my data under any other license" people happy too.

The second concession seems a little more than many mappers can be
asked.  It reminds me very much of the Facebook / Myspace / whatever
terms of service where the company wants to have the copyright of
everything you create and has about 15 excuses in their FAQ to justify
that (we need to protect the body of our users' creations and need the
ability to sue people who misuse it)

Cheers

(FWIW I pledge that if I can have a no-CT account (ODbL only), I will
register a second account to make a percentage of my edits in PD,
especially those modifying objects created by others)