[OSM-talk] Partnership between OSM and local government?

Frederik Ramm frederik at remote.org
Tue Sep 21 23:16:42 BST 2010


David,

David Murn wrote:
> Which is completely fair.  If you represent yourself as a non-profit,
> you cant build up a collection of 'free' material then use it
> commercially.  What about for example if you represented yourself as a
> non-profit wanting to use an artists song, but then decided to
> re-licence that song and sell it on a CD commercially?  Its a great way
> to ensure no-one else ever trusts us with their data if we represent
> ourselves as 'non-profit' again though.

I think it is quite usual for non-profits to license their output very 
liberally (say, PD, CC-BY, CC-BY-SA), i.e. not reqesting that their 
output be used non-commercially.

We are definitely non-profit and we should "represent ourselves as 
non-profit" all the time, but of course you are right in saying that we 
need to make that clear to people we're dealing with that the work which 
we do in our non-profit organisation (or non-organisation) is not 
limited to noncommercial use.

>> If you get something in writing, the best thing to get is something 
>> where they allow you to use their data "for publication as part of 
>> OpenStreetMap". That would then include the current and any future 
>> license. Do not under any circumstances accept data that is released 
>> "under CC-BY-SA" as this is a dead-end that will require re-negotiation 
>> soon.
> 
> Wont anything in writing have to be re-negotiated soon?

No. If you get something in writing that says "you can use this for 
OpenStreetMap" then wherever "OpenStreetMap" goes, the data goes too. No 
re-negotiation necessary. We have had several such donations in Germany 
where data was explicitly given to us not under license A or license B 
but under the terms that "this data may be used in OpenStreetMap, 
whatever their license".

Actually, sometimes it is easier to convince your counterpart in 
government to give the data to you than to have them publish it under a 
license (whatever the license is).

Bye
Frederik

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



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